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THE AVERA 


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Received .__ JUN .2_._ 1919, 


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H LATIMER. 


HUG 


HUGH LATIMER 


A BIOGRAPHY 


BY 


ROBERT DEMAUS, M.A. 


AUTHOR OF ° WILLIAM TIKDALE, ETC, 


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HUGH 


SCHOOL OF RELICION 


LATIMER 


‘Gommendo bobis beteranum illum Christi et nostre gentis Anolicane 
herum Apostolum Bugonem Putimernm.’ Ridley. 


“Bid there eber anp man flourish, J say not in England only, but in anp 
nation in the forld, witer the Bpostles, foho preached the Gospel more sincerely, 
purely and honestly, than Hugh Patimer, Bishop of Worcester.’ 

Sir Richard Morison. 


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PREFACE 


HE Rev. Robert Demaus, M.A., the author of this 
Life of Latimer, died at Chelsea on March 15, 
1874; but so careful was his method of research and 
so judicious his treatment, that this biography still holds 
its place amongst the standard works on Latimer. 

Robert Demaus was born about the year 1829, and took 
the degree of M.A. at Edinburgh University in 1850. He 
was a schoolmaster successively at Aberfeldy, Alnwick, 
and Aberdeen ; but, having been ordained in 1860, he 
came to London in 1865 as Senior Curate of St. Luke’s, 
Chelsea, where he remained until his death. For the last 
few years of his life he also acted as Principal of White- 
lands Training College. 

Demaus’s earlier works were educational, but in 1869 
his Hugh Latimer was published by the Religious Tract 
Society. He followed this up in 1871 by the issue of 
William Tindale: A Contribution to the Early History of 
the English Bible. Both works were warmly commended 
by scholars, and no English Lives have displaced them. 
In dealing with Latimer, Demaus stated his own aim and 
method in the original Preface thus :— 

‘The present biographer hopes that in attempting this 
task he has not been enticed, by his long-cherished ad- 


miration of Latimer, into an undertaking altogether beyond 
5 


6 Preface 


his strength. He has at all events sedulously availed 
himself of such materials for his work as were within his 
reach. His aim has been, if possible, to look at Latimer 
as his contemporaries saw him; and, setting aside modern 
fanciful portraits, to reproduce, as far as may be, the very 
authentic image of the man as he spoke, and acted, and 
suffered, three centuries ago. Modern authorities, there- 
fore, friendly or unfriendly, have been very little con- 
sulted ; the narrative has been compiled almost exclusively, 
in its framework, and in its details, from contemporary 
documents. Latimer’s published writings are rich in 
autobiographical allusions ; a considerable number of his 
letters have been preserved among the Chapter House 
Papers in the State Paper Office ; in the same invaluable 
repository, and among the MSS. in the British Museum, 
many documents have been found which throw much 
light upon his career; and the works of his contemporaries, 
especially of his great associates, Ridley and Cranmer, 
contain frequent references to one who for many years 
played so important a part in the transactions of the time. 

‘From all these sources the author has gleaned what 
seemed best adapted to his purpose ; he has used his 
best endeavours to arrange in consistent chronological 
order the oft-times confused and contradictory materials ; 
what was obscure he has attempted to elucidate ; what 
was manifestly wrong he has corrected ; and with such 
skill and patience as he is master of, he has combined 
in one clear harmonious whole the facts and illustrations 
collected with no small labour from many scattered fields. 
He has endeavoured, notwithstanding his admiration of 
Latimer, to observe that impartiality which is due to 
truth; he has written, not as a panegyrist, but as a 
biographer ; and has neither blindly praised all Latimer’s 
conduct, nor wittingly suppressed any of his faults. And 
yet, to speak the truth, every honest biography of Latimer 
must be, more or less, a panegyric; for what language 


Preface 7 


but that of praise can be suitably employed in writing of 
one who, in times of unwonted danger and difficulty, 
spent a busy life and died a brave death, with scarce a 
single imputation upon his honesty and courage, or the 
consistent Christian uprightness of his character ?’ 

The work was revised by Demaus for a new edition 
shortly before his death. The changes in the present 
edition are few and unimportant. 

A. R, B. 

65, St. PAUL’s CHURCHYARD, 

Fuly, 1903. 


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4 


CONTENTS 


eo 

CHAPTER PAGE 
PREFACE , = e - “ of nS 

I. LATIMER’S EARLY LIFE . - - +. EI 


II. 


III. 


IV. 


Vv. 


(1485-1524) 


FROM LATIMER’S CONVERSION TO HIS APPEAR- 
ANCE BEFORE WOLSEY ° ° e 43 


(1524-1526) 


FROM LATIMER’S APPEARANCE BEFORE WOLSEY 
TO HIS APPOINTMENT AS RECTOR OF WEST 
KINGTON : : . ° - 69 


(1526-1531) 


LATIMER AT WEST KINGTON . . - 114 
(1531-1535) 
LATIMER’S EPISCOPATE . ° ° » 203 


(1535-1539) 


10 Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 
VI. FROM LATIMER’S RESIGNATION OF HIS BISHOPRIC 
TO HIS RESTORATION TO LIBERTY ON THE 

ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. . - 553 


(1539-1547) 


VII. LATIMER UNDER KING EDWARD. . « 396 
(1547-1553) 


VIII. LATIMER THE MARTYR . . ° - 478 
(1553-1555) 


} 


HUGH LATIMER 


CHAPTER I 


LATIMER’S EARLY LIFE 


(1485-1524) 


F the birth and parentage of Latimer not much is 

known for certain beyond what is contained in 

the oft-quoted passage, which has almost acquired a 

prescriptive right to stand at the outset of his biography. 

Preaching before King Edward VI., the Reformer thus 
recounts the circumstances of his early life :— 

‘ My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own ; 
only he had a farm of three or four pounds by year at 
the uttermost ; and hereupon he tilled so much as kept 
half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep ; 
and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did 
find the King a harness, with himself and his horse, while 
he came to the place that he should receive the King’s 
wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when 
he went unto Blackheath Field.t He kept me to school, 
or else I had not been able to have preached before the 
King’s majesty now. He married my sisters with five 


* Where the Cornish rebels were defeated, June 22, 1497. 
It 


12 Early Life 


pound or twenty nobles apiece ; so that he brought them 
up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for 
his poor neighbours; and some alms he gave to the 
poor.’ ? 

Latimer’s ancestors have not been traced further back 
than this honest yeoman, whose little farm was in the 
neighbourhood of Thurcastone, a small village in 
Leicestershire. The name Latimer was not uncommon 
in England ;? and in Leicestershire, for upwards of two 
centuries before the birth of the Reformer, there had 
flourished a family of Latimers, powerful knights and 
wealthy proprietors.3 

Coming apparently from the neighbouring county of 
Northampton, where their name is still preserved in the 
village of Burton Latimer, near Kettering, they had, by for- 
tunate intermarriages, acquired. extensive possessions in the 
south-eastern parts of Leicestershire. They were Lords of 
the Manors of Smeton, Westerby, and Foxton; and the 
armorial cognisance of the family, the gold cross in 
a red field which had followed Edward Longshanks 
to the Scottish wars, may still be seen in the windows 
of some village churches in the county, the sole memento 
of squires, whose very name has almost perished. For, 
before the commencement of the Wars of the Roses, the 
Leicestershire Latimers, so far, at least, as heralds took 
cognisance of them, had become extinct; but, in the 
North of England, a younger branch of the family, who 
had settled in Yorkshire, and become allied with the great 


t Latimer’s Sermons, p. 101, of the Parker Society Edition; the 
edition always referred to in this biography. 

? Latimer, say the etymologists rather fancifully, is the same as 
Latiner, z.e., one who understood and interpreted Latin, and afterwards 
an interpreter in general. 

3 The history of their acquisitions may be traced in the Inquisitiones 
post mortem; and their pedigree is given in Nichols’ Leicestershire, 
Lansdowne MSS., and elsewhere, copiously enough, but without in any 
way throwing light upon our Latimer’s descent. 

4 Gules, a cross patonce, or. 


Home Surroundings 13 


Westmoreland Nevilles, produced a race of Latimers, 
who rose to conspicuous eminence in the State; and, 
through them, the name is still preserved in existence in 
the peerage of England.* 

There is much probability that the Reformer was de- 
scended in some way from this once powerful family of 
Leicestershire Latimers. Some younger son, driven from 
the home of his ancestors, or self-exiled, may have retired 
to the pastoral seclusion of Thurcastone, and there 
founded a family of yeomen Latimers, destined in a few 
generations to surround the name with a more abiding 
glory than any of the achievements of heraldry. 

Thurcastone, anciently Turchitelestone, is one of those 
peaceful villages which remain almost undisturbed by the 
tide of manufacturing energy that has overflowed England. 
It lies in the valley of the Soar, at the foot of the Charn- 
wood Hills, sheltered on all sides by gentle eminences, 
and surrounded by places of historical interest. To the 
south the ancient county town of Leicester can be descried, 
with the ruins of that renowned abbey where the dust 
of Wolsey reposes. Rothley Temple, the birthplace of 
Macaulay (one of the earliest of modern writers to 
recognise the merits of Latimer), is just behind the village 
on the north. To the east there is a glorious prospect 
across the fertile vale of Belvoir ; while westward, beneath 
Barden Hill, wave the stately forests of Bradgate Park, 
once the home of Lady Jane Grey. 

The village is of unknown antiquity. It may have 
existed when the Roman legions marched along the 
neighbouring Fossway. It is mentioned in Domesday ; 
and at the Conquest the manor was given to Hugh de 
Grentmaisnil, who made over the patronage of the parish 
church to the Abbey of St. Evraux, in Normandy, in whose 
hands it remained almost to the era of the Reformation.? 


1 Viscount Latimer is one of the titles of the Duke of Leeds. 
2 Harleian MSS., 6700. 


14 Early Life 


The village has never been very populous. When 
Elizabeth ascended the throne it numbered only twenty- 
five families ; and at the period of Latimer’s birth, some 
seventy years before, its inhabitants probably did not 
amount to much above a hundred souls. Tradition points 
to a rude substantial farmhouse in the village, near the 
church, as the very home in which Hugh Latimer was 
born. Possibly this building may occupy the site of his 
birthplace; but an inscription on the house itself, 
assigning it to the first year of Elizabeth’s reign—three 
years, that is, after Latimer was burned at Oxford—must 
be considered a conclusive disproof of the fond tradition 
of the villagers. 

The precise year of Latimer’s birth is a subject much de- 
bated. The authorities for fixing this important point are 
few, and are unfortunately not easily reconcilable. Foxe 
states that Latimer was sent to Cambridge at the age of 
fourteen. Now, from the University Register, it appears 
that he took his Bachelor’s degree in 1510, after the four 
years’ residence then customary. In 1510, therefore, he 
would be, according to Foxe’s statement, eighteen years of 
age; and his birth would thus be assigned to the year 
1491 or 1492. This has accordingly been assumed as the 
correct date by the most recent inquirers.* 

There is, however, another contemporary authority 
more intimately acquainted than Foxe with Latimer’s 
history ; and his account would lead us to assign Latimer’s 
birth to a somewhat earlier period. Augustine Bernher, 
Latimer’s servant, constantly in attendance upon him, and 
to whom, indeed, we owe the preservation of many of his 
sermons, speaks of his master as being ‘ above threescore 
and seven years of age’? in the reign of Edward VI. 
Edward’s reign extended from 1547 to 1553; and this 


* ¢.g., Cooper, Athena Cantabrigtenses ; Froude, vol. ii. ; Corrie, in 
the prefatory Memoir to Latimer’s Sermons. 
2 Latimer’s Sermons, p. 320. 


Latimer’s Birth 15: 


statement of Bernher’s would, therefore, place Latimer’s 
birth somewhere between 1479 and 1486. It is un- 
questionable that Latimer’s contemporaries uniformly 
speak of him as having attained an extreme old age. 
‘Old Hugh Latimer’ was his familiar appellation among 
the people for many years before his martyrdom. But if 
he was born, as has been maintained, in 1491, he was not 
more than sixty-four at his death ; and it seems incredible 
that he should have acquired the reputation of extreme 
age when he was still under sixty. 

Probability seems, therefore, to incline to an earlier date 
than 1491 ; and with due regard to all that is known of 


Latimer, his birth may be assigned to the year 1484 or 


1485. An earlier date would leave a large part of his life 
a total blank; a later date is at variance with the uniform 
tradition of contemporaries as to his age. 

Towards the close, therefore, of the brief reign of 
Richard III., when men were everywhere looking for 
some one to deliver them from the tyranny of the usurper, 
or, perhaps, when the din of war was sweeping across the 
Leicester Downs, and the armies were mustering for the 
last fight in the Wars of the Roses, the little farm-house of 
the Thurcastone yeoman was gladdened by the birth of a 
son, who was duly christened in the old font at the parish 
church, and named Hugh, after his father. He was, it is 
believed, the youngest child, and the family consisted of 
six daughters, and several other sons. The children do 
not seem to have been robust. Latimer’s brothers all 
died in early childhood; and he himself inherited a 
weakly constitution, which often, in later years, sadly 
interfered with his labours. - Some of his sisters, we have 
heard Latimer declare before Edward, grew up to 
womanhood, and were married, probably to neighbouring 
yeomen or thriving citizens of Leicester; but even 
tradition has not preserved the names of any of their 
husbands. The only fact discovered concerning their 


: 


16 Early Life 


families is that a daughter of one of these sisters, a niece 
consequently of the great Reformer, was married to Dr. 
Thomas Sampson,t a well-known Divine, who was 
ordained by Ridley, and in Elizabeth’s time was Dean of 
Christ Church, Oxford, but was subsequently removed for 
Nonconformity, and appointed Master of Wigston’s 
Hospital, in Leicester. Latimer himself was never 
married,? and it is to this family of the Sampsons, 
therefore, that we must look as the only persons entitled, 
so far as has been ascertained, to claim kindred with the 
great English Reformer. 

Latimer’s father belonged to that class of sturdy, well- 
to-do yeomen, who formed at that period the best 
representatives of the general intelligence and character 
of the English nation. As yet manufactures were few 
and unimportant ; trade was in its infancy; large towns 
had not become the chief and almost exclusive centres of 
action and influence ; the bulk of the population lived in 
such villages as Thurcastone. The yeomanry constituted 
the real strength of the country, the glory of England, the 
envy of other nations. From this class, too, most of the 
great leaders of the sixteenth century proceeded. Luther 
and Knox, Zwingle and Melancthon, More and Wolsey, 
Latimer and Erasmus, all sprang from the sturdy 
yeomanry or the simple handicraftsmen of the day. It 
was no unimportant element, therefore, in that discipline 
by which Latimer was prepared for his great function as 
the popular-Reformer of England, that his birth and early 
education threw him-amongst those whom he was 
afterwards to instruct and influence. A man of the 
people, his eloquence was all the more likely to touch 
the chords of popular sympathy. 


t Nichols’ Leicestershire. . ! 

2 Parsons, the Jesuit, indeed, mentions Latimer as one of the pillars 
of the Reformation, who were married priests or friars; but his 
authority is worthless. The Duchess of Suffolk also speaks of ‘the 
churching of Latimer’s wife’ ; but she seems to be in a joking humour. 
See, however, infra, under the year 1552. 


Early Training 17 


The early training of Latimer would be such as became 
the son of a pious, hospitable yeoman, of ‘right good 
estimation.’ Book-learning would constitute but a small 
part of his education. In his earliest years we may fancy 
him following his mother to milk her ‘thirty kine’; or 
accompanying his father to the fields. As he grew older, 
we may suppose him repairing with the rest of the family 
to the fairs and festivals of Leicester, amused at the 
sports of that ancient city, and amazed at the elaborate 
religious performances. In the long winter evenings he 
would listen to reminiscences of Bosworth Field, where 
many of the neighbours must have fought, or perhaps to 
older traditions of the bloody fights of the Yorkists and 
Lancastrians, or the glorious victories of their ancestors 
at Cressy and Agincourt. The piety of his father would 
ensure an early acquaintance with the legends of the 
Church, and a careful practice of such religious exercises 
as were deemed appropriate to his tender years. 

One point it is important to observe. Leicestershire 
had been the cradle of Lollardism ; Lutterworth, the 
scene of Wickliffe’s labours, was but a day’s journey 
from Thurcastone; and, doubtless, there were some 
secret Wickliffites among the neighbouring villages. 
Latimer’s home, however, was, we know, kept free 
from any taint of what the Church called heresy ; and it 
was not till he had reached mature life that he heard 
the infallibility of the Church assailed. To his mother 
he only once alludes, in the passage already quoted : and 
it may be assumed as probable that she died in his 
childhood, and that he thus never enjoyed that gentle 
training which a child receives from the lips of a loving 
mother. His father survived her for many years; lived 
long enough to witness his son’s triumphs in the University ; 
long enough, let us hope, to be cheered by that purer 
faith which his son was one of the first to publish in 
England, 

2 


18 Early Life 


The young Latimer, like many other delicate childien, 
was a precocious boy. Even ‘at the age of four or there- 
abouts,’ according to Foxe, he had such ‘a ready, prompt, 
and sharp wit, that his parents purposed to train him up 
in erudition and knowledge of good literature.’ Schools 
were rare in those days, and good literature was still rarer 
even at such schools as there were ; but the parish priest 
would be able to communicate some instruction to the 
young scholar ; and Leicester was at hand, and its lordly 
abbey, with its well-furnished library, and numerous monks, 
would surely be able to supply such knowledge as was then 
cultivated. 

Of one part of his education the law took cognisance ; 
and that was carefully superintended by his father, as 
Latimer afterwards gratefully acknowledged :— 

‘My poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot, as 
to learn me any other thing; and so I think other men 
did their children ; he taught me how to draw, how to lay 
my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of 
arms, as other nations do, but with strength of the body. 
I had my bows bought me according to my age and 
strength ; as I increased in them, so my bows were made 
bigger and bigger; for men shall never shoot well, except 
they be brought up in it; it is a goodly art, a wholesome 
kind of exercise, and much commended in physic.’ ? 

In this calm, eventless routine the first fifteen or twenty 
years of Latimer’s life were passed. Only on one occasion 
did anything occur to break in upon the tranquil monotony 
of this peaceful existence. It was the occasion alluded to 
by Latimer in the sermon already cited. ‘The Cornishmen, 
enraged at a heavy subsidy imposed to meet the invasion 
of the partisans of Perkin Warbeck, rose in rebellion ; 
marched with little opposition through the southern 


* Foxe, vol. v. p. 437._ The edition here (and always in this biography) 
quoted, is that of the Religious Tract Society. The paging, in general, 
corresponds with the excellent edition by Prebendaly Townsend. 

2 Sernions, p. 197. 


Influences 19 


counties ; and encamped on Blackheath, preparatory to 
an attack on London and the Tower. Henry VII. hastily 
raised an army, and amongst others, Latimer’s father was 
summoned to the field. It was the young Latimer’s first 
contact with war; and we may well fancy that it was with 
no ordinary emotion that the precocious boy of twelve, 
nursed up in the traditions of an English yeoman’s home, 
buckled his father’s armour, and saw him depart for the 
conflict. 

The war was soon over. The insurgents were defeated 
on Blackheath, June 22, 1497. Warbeck, the source of 
the disturbance, was taken prisoner in September, and 
there was no further danger that threatened the throne : 
we may suppose, therefore, that Latimer’s father would be 
at his home again in time to secure his harvest ; and the 
long evenings in the Thurcastone farmhouse, would, that 
winter, be beguiled by a fresh budget of adventures in 
the field and new tales of the wealth and wonders of 
London. 

Meantime, in the great world beyond the Leicestershire 
village, there were many indications that some mighty 
change was at hand. For ages torpor and mental in- 
activity had prevailed, and the current of thought seemed, 
as it were, to have been icebound; but now the atmo- 
sphere was instinct with life and motion, and the long 
frozen stream was beginning again to flow. Not long 
before Latimer’s birth printing had been invented ; and 
the press was silently but irresistibly preparing the way 
for the downfall of medizevalism and the revival of religion 
and letters. While Latimer was at school, America was 
discovered ; the very limits of the globe seemed to have 
expanded, and a spirit of adventure and enterprise was 
evoked which communicated itself to the age, and made 
men restless and predisposed to change. On the Conti- 
‘nent there had been a great revival of learning. The 
scholars of the day, abandoning the barren disputations of 


20 Early Life 


the schoolmen, and the dreary theology of the time, had 
devoted themselves to the study of the great classical 
writers of Greece and Rome, long buried in oblivion, but 
now disinterred and made accessible through the press. 
Polite letters and sound knowledge received a vast 
impulse, the full effect of which was not even imagined 
by the great patrons of learning. As yet, however, this 
movement had not reached England; though a few 
Englishmen, enthusiastic in the pursuit of knowledge, had 
travelled to Italy and France to drink at the pure fountains 
of revived taste. 

The reign of Henry VII., after the suppression of the 
disturbances excited by Symnel and Warbeck, was not 
marked by any transaction of importance. One event, 
however, destined in the next generation to produce the 
most momentous results, was in those last years of the 
fifteenth century, slowly advancing to its accomplishment 
Henry, a shrewd and politic monarch, was anxious to 
strengthen his family by some powerful foreign alliance ; 
and proposed a marriage between Arthur, Prince of Wales, 
and Catherine of Arragon, daughter of the wealthy and 
powerful sovereigns of Spain. There were difficulties, 
however, in the way. Henry’s title to the throne was a 
doubtful one. Warwick, son of the Clarence who had 
been, according to tradition, drowned in a butt of wine, 
was still in existence, and though of weak intellect, was 
the unquestionable representative of the Plantagenets. 
But Henry had already imbrued his hands in kindred 
blood ; and in 1498 Warwick perished on the scaffold. 
The nuptials were still deferred, however, on account of 
the youth of the bridegroom ; and not until November 14, 
1501, was the long-meditated alliance completed. Four 
months afterwards Prince Arthur died ; and Henry, fully 
determined at all risks to retain in his coffers the enormous 
dower of the Spanish princess, proposed that the widow 
should be married to his second son. 


From School to University 21 


Such a proposal had many obstacles to encounter. 
The young prince was only eleven years of age, and 
resolutely protested against the match. It was besides 
opposed to the canon law of the Church, and was con- 
templated with horror by most people as abominable and 
incestuous. Long years of intrigue followed; Henry even 
offering to marry Catherine himself, and so terminate the 
negotiations. At length a dispensation for the marriage 
was procured from Rome; and it was agreed that the 
nuptials, which had occupied the Courts of England and 
Spain since the year 1488, should be solemnised when the 
youthful Henry attained maturer years." 

At his schools Latimer had made such progress, and 
exhibited such a decided bent for study, that his father 
determined to send him to the University of Cambridge. 
His delicate constitution was unsuited for the labours of a 
yeoman ; and everything pointed to the Church as the 
proper profession for one so studious and so zealously 
attached to the services of religion. And whatever were 
the corruptions of the Church, it was her boast, and one 
grand source of her strength, that her doors were open 
to all comers, and that in her service the son of the 
humblest peasant might rise by merit alone to rank above 
the proudest peer of the realm : indeed, there was at that 
very time, a young chaplain at Calais, Thomas Wolsey by 
name, the son of a butcher in Ipswich, who by sheer force 
of superior intellect was to rule England for nearly a 
quarter of a century. It may have been because some of 
the colleges in Cambridge possessed property not far from 
Thurcastone, that Latimer was sent to study at that 
University rather than at Oxford; or some other con- 
sideration, unknown to us, may have determined his 
choice ; it is certain, however, that in the spring of 1506, 


* The curious reader will find the whole complicated negotiations 
arranged in Bergenroth’s Venetian and Spanish State Papers, published 
in the series of Calendars of State Papers. 


22 Early Life 


the young scholar removed from his ini and became a 
student at Cambridge. 

The Cambridge of Latimer’s time was not the Cambridge 
of our day. Scarcely one-half of the colleges of which 
that University now boasts, were then in existence. There 
were, however, plenty of hostels or college boarding- 
houses ; students were probably more numerous than at 
present, and there were several religious houses filled with 
troops of monks. The older writers uniformly speak of 
Latimer as a student of ‘Christ’s College, an old foundation 
which had fallen into decay, but which was, in 1506, 
rising from its ruins under the fostering care of the great 
patroness of learning of that day, Margaret, Countess of 
Richmond, mother of the sovereign who then ruled in 
England. There is not, however, any record preserved 
in any of the Cambridge Registers which confirms this 
opinion of the older writers ; it would rather seem, indeed, 
that Latimer was entered a student in Clare Hall, for 
Ridley, when officially visiting Cambridge in the reign of 
Edward VI., speaks of Clare Hall as the place of his 
education ; and the earliest record of his presence in the 
University, associates him with the same college. 

About the beginning of February, 1510, while still an 
undergraduate, Latimer was elected to a fellowship in 
Clare Hall. At the period of his election he was what 1s 
in the University styled Quaestionista, that is, he was just 
preparing to obtain his Bachelor’s degree, or was an 
undergraduate in his last or twelfth term, for in those 
times twelve full terms were kept before proceeding to the 
degree of Bachelor. His election to a fellowship at this 
early period of his University career, may fairly enough 
be considered a confirmation of the uniform traditional 

* ‘Etiam circa festum Purificationis proxime sequens, eligebantur in 
socios istius Collegii (viz., Clare Hall), Dominus Johannes Powel, et 
Dominus Willelmus Pyndar, in artibus Baccalaurei, et Dominus Hugo 


Latymer Quzstionista.’—Cambridge Records, quoted in Wordsworth’s 
Ecclesiastical Biography, ii. 446. 


At Cambridge 23 


account of his high reputation for learning and ability. 
The neighbours of old Hugh Latimer at Thurcastone had 
loudly condemned his extravagance in spending so much 
money on his son’s education ; this election toa fellowship 
would silence the objectors, for though it only entitled 
Latimer to one shilling and fourpence per week for 
commons, and an additional sum of one pound three and 
fourpence a year,’ yet in those frugal times it was not im- 
possible to live decently even on this slender income. If 
Latimer had hitherto studied at Christ’s College, as the 
older writers maintain, his election to a fellowship would, 
of course, compel him to remove to Clare Hall, and 
continue his studies there ; curiously enough, however, 
the only person ever spoken of as his tutor was. Dr. 
Watson, who certainly belonged to Christ’s College, and 
was indeed its fourth Master. 

A few weeks after his election to the fellowship, he 
proceeded to his degree of Bachelor of Arts. The Grace 
for this degree is preserved in the University Grace Book, 
and runs in the usual form,? except that it is noted that 
Latimer had, in one of his terms, not attended the cus- 
tomary instruction, from what cause is not stated. 

Three years more spent in study, he proceeded to the 
higher degree of Master of Arts, the Grace for which, in 
the customary form, is preserved in the University Grace 
Book, for the year ending at Michaelmas, 1514.3 In the 
years intervening between the two degrees, he had made 


* It is generally agreed that money in those days had fifteen times its 
present value ; the sum in the text would thus amount to upwards of 
sixty-six pounds of our money. 

2 ‘Conceditur Hugoni Latymer ut duodecim termini, in quorum 
quolibet, excepto uno, ordinaria audiverit, etsi non secundum formam 
statuti, sufficiant sibi ad respondendum queestioni.—University Grace 
Book, Michaelmas, 1509, to Michaelmas, I5I0. 

3 ‘Conceditur Domino Latymer ut lectiones ordinariz novem ter- 
minorum auditze, cum quatuor responsionibus, quarum una erat in die 
cinerum’ (Ash Wednesday), ‘altera in finali determinatione, et duze 
aliz in grammatica, quarum altera in die conversationis, altera in 
scholis publicis, sufficiant sibi ad incipiendum in artibus, sic ut solvat 
Universitati, 13 sol. ilijd.” (13s. 4d_). 


24 Early Life 


choice of the profession to which his life should be 
devoted, and had entered the Church. He was ordained 
at Lincoln, his birthplace being in that very extensive 
diocese ; but as norecord of his ordination is preserved in 
the Register of Lincoln, the exact date cannot be fixed ; 
the locality, however, is placed beyond doubt by his own 
testimony.* It may be assumed, in the absence of any 
positive statement, that he was ordained shortly after he 
had taken his Bachelor’s degree; for he had then 
attained the canonical age, and there was no reason, 
therefore, for any delay. On graduating as Master of 
Arts, he became what was styled a Regent in the 
University, and would naturally take some share in 
instructing the undergraduates: we know scarcely any- 
thing, however, of any of his pupils, except that in a 
later part of this biography, we shall find one of them, 
-Brigenden by name, among the bitterest of his opponents, 
when he began to preach the doctrines of the Reformation. 

From 1514, when he graduated as Master of Arts, we 
have no further official record of Latimer till 1522, when 
he appears in the Proctor’s Books, as one of twelve 
preachers, appointed by the University in accordance with 
an old custom, and licensed, in virtue of a peculiar privilege 
of Cambridge, to officiate in any part of England. In this 
appointment we have the first recognition of Latimer’s 
ability in that special sphere of labour for which he 
possessed so many eminent qualifications, and in which he 
was destined to be so signal a benefactor to his country. 
In the same year he was also selected to carry the silver 
cross of the University in all solemn processions, a grace- 
ful tribute to the uprightness of his character, for this 
office was usually ‘reserved for such an one as in sancti- 
mony of life excelled all other.’ In the regular course 


* Sermons, p. 208. 

2 Strype, Eccl. Mem., from a MS. by Ralph Morice, Secretary to 
Cranmer. The MS. says, ‘ For his gravity and years he was preferred 
to keep the cross’: a confirmation of the view here adopted as to 
Latimer’s age. 


Quiet Years 25 


he next proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. 
The Grace for this degree has not been preserved in the 
University Records, which were not very carefully kept in 
those times ; but the following curious entry in reference 
to this degree occurs in the Proctor’s Books for the year 
ending Michaelmas, 1524 :— 


‘ Baccalaurei in Theologia— 


M. Latymer 
M. Stafforth{ 
M. Rogers nihil. 
M. Thyxtyll 

Gic. .ete 7 


that is, the Masters of Arts whose names are thus given, 
had graduated as Bachelors in Theology, but had not paid 
the customary fees, perhaps from poverty, or because they 
had been excused for some special ground, or for some 
other reason, which it is, of course, idle to conjecture. 

Such are all the authentic official notices of Latimer’s 
career at Cambridge, from his entering the University in 
1506 up to the year 1524. They are few, yet what more 
could be expected to be recorded of the uneventful life of 
an earnest student ? The real life of Latimer, the growth 
of his intellect, the development of his character, these 
went on silently, and left no external record. Under any 
circumstances, these eighteen years, at the critical period 
of a man’s life, when he passes from boyhood into the 
matured intellect and the serious responsibilities of man- 
hood, are of the utmost importance. Spent ina University, 
they would naturally be expected to form and fix Latimer’s 
opinions, and fashion his life and character on a type from 
which he would not afterwards materially vary. 

These eighteen years, moreover, were not years of 
ordinary calm academic routine. Within the University, 
and without, all was in a tumult of excitement. The 


* Fowe, vol. vii. Appendix. 


26 Early Life 


greatest revolution that had occurred in Europe since the 
Christian era was shaking society to its very centre; every 
heart was stirred to its depths; an earnest controversy 
was everywhere waged, in which it was impossible to 
stand neutral; every man was roused to think, and to 
decide, and to act ; and life became instinct with a vigour 
and reality which had been unknown for many years. 
Into the nature of this great movement we shall have to 
glance before proceeding further with the narrative of 
Latimer’s life; first of all, however, let us fill up the 
meagre picture of his early college years with some of 
those incidents, forgotten now, which in their day filled 
the University with excitement, and formed the theme of 
Latimer’s thoughts and conversation with his fellow- 
students. 

In the spring of 1506, just after Latimer had entered 
the University, and before the first edge of the novelty of 
everything around had been blunted, there were great 
doings at Cambridge, filling the undergraduate world 
with excitement and amazement. On St. George’s Eve, 
April 22, the King (Henry VII.) came to visit Cambridge, 
accompanied by his mother, the Countess of Richmond, 
the foundress of Christ’s College, where (if we believe 
the old writers) Latimer was studying. The Mayor and 
other municipal officials rode out two or three miles to 
welcome the distinguished visitors: ‘and as he ap- 
proached the University, within a quarter of a mile, there 
stood first of all the four orders of friars, and after, other 
religious, and the King, on horseback, kissed the cross of 
every of the religious, and then there stood all along all 
the graduates after their degrees, in their habits, and at 
the end of them was the University Cross’ [which 
Latimer himself was to bear one day], ‘ where was a form 
and a cushion, as accustomed ; there the King did alight, 
and the Bishop of Rochester [Fisher] then being Chan- 
cellor of the University, accompanied with other doctors, 


Visitors at Cambridge 27 


censed the King, and after made a little proposition, and 
welcomed him.’' The young freshman from Thurcastone 
was, of course, among the wondering crowd, and for the 
first time beheld the Royalty of England, and witnessed 
the stately ceremony which attends on kings. 

Thesame year, without pomp or state, a shrewd-looking 
diminutive Dutchman, Erasmus by name, arrived at 
Cambridge ; and his coming, scarcely noticed at the 
time, produced much more abiding consequences than the 
royal progress, with its procession and censing, and nine- 
days’ wonder. 

In 1509, both Henry VII. and the Countess of Richmond 
died, and the scholars of the University, Latimer amongst 
them, would be invoking the muses to celebrate in woeful 
elegies the decease of those patrons of learning. 

In 1520, Wolsey, then in ‘full-blown dignity,’ paid a 
visit to Cambridge, and was received with the honour due 
to his rank and influence. Indeed, the University autho- 
rities carried servile flattery almost to the verge of blas- - 
phemy in their entertainment of the great King Cardinal. 
Bryan Roo, Fellow of King’s College, was appointed to 
welcome him in a Latin oration, and, among other com- 
pliments, he applied to Wolsey the declaration of the 
Psalmist concerning the Messiah—‘ Thou art a priest for 
ever, after the order of Melchizedeck,’? An altar was 
erected, and a magnificent entertainment was provided, 
the bill of fare including ‘two oxen, six swans, six great 
pikes, six shell fish, and a great river fish called a breme,’ 3 
for which six and eightpence, an exorbitant price in those 
days, was paid. Not uncommonly the reception of such 
visitors was followed by a plague, so severe as to compel 
the discontinuance of the ordinary University work ; and 
the explanation of this phenomenon throws a curious light 


* Cooper’s Annals of Cambridge, from Baker’s MSS. 
? The speech is given entire in Lamb’s Original Documents, etc. 
3 Cooper’s Annals of Cambridge. 


28 Early Life 


(or shade ?) upon the domestic manners of our ancestors. 
When any visitor of rank was expected, special care was 
taken to clean the streets; and as they were usually as 
dirty and unscavenged as those of an Oriental city, the 
common receptacle for the filth and debris of the town, 
it is not surprising that the occasional stirring of this 
accumulated litter should beget a plague. 

In this same year of Wolsey’s visit, Luther’s works were 
ignominiously burned at Cambridge, Latimer, no doubt, 
looking on with delighted approbation, as Saul did at the 
stoning of Stephen ; but, as we shall see, this burning of 
Luther’s books could not prevent his opinions spreading 
rapidly among the students. Queen Catherine also visited 
Cambridge about this time, but she had not yet become 
the great apple of discord, dividing England into hostile 
camps. Finally, in 1522, Henry VIII. himself came to 
the University, and was received as he loved to be 
received, with profuse and magnificent pomp. The 
University Cross was borne solemnly before him, on this 
occasion probably by Latimer himself, who was rewarded 
with the very modest sum of sixteen pence? for performing 
this duty. 

So much for the incidents of Latimer’s college career. 
As to the education then givenat Cambridge, the ingenuous 
mind thirsting for knowledge was supplied with the most 
meagre intellectual provender. Scholastic theology was 
the supreme study. ‘About thirty years ago,’ says 
Erasmus, in 1516, ‘ nothing was taught at Cambridge except 
the ‘Parva Logicalia’ of Alexander,? and the Questions of 


* Cooper’s Annals of Cambridge, i. 306. 

2 i.e, Alexander of Aphrodisias, one of the commentators upon 
Aristotle. The words of Erasmus occur in a letter written in 1516. 
‘Ante annos ferme triginta, nihil tradebatur in schola Cantabrigiensi, 
preter Alexandrum, Parva Logicalta, (ut vocant) et vetera illa Aristo- 
telis dictata, Scoticasque quzstiones.’ Epist. lib. ii, 10, edit. 1642. 
Lupton says ‘that the Alexander here named was Alexander de Villa Dei, 
or A. Dolensis, a native of Dol in Brittany, and was the supreme 
authority in Grammar : his work is called Doctrinale: he is ridiculed 


Learning in England 29 


the Scotists.’* Polite letters, pure Latinity, exact science, 
rational Scriptural theology, were all unknown. Oxford 
was proverbial for its bad Latin ; and Cambridge did not 
put the sister University out of countenance by its superi- 
ority. On the Continent the reviving intellect of the rising 
generation had rebelled against this barbarism, and had 
even dared to ridicule the blind teachers who had so long 
claimed the monopoly of knowledge. It was impossible 
for men any longer to believe the foolish legends which 
constituted the bulk of the theology of the age. Men 
who had studied the great models of classical taste and 
eloquence, laughed to scorn the idle wrangling of the 
scholastic divines ; and the scandalous lives of many of the 
clergy furnished an endless theme for raillery and indig- 
nant reprobation. This movement for the revival of taste, 
and the cultivation of true knowledge, had made consider- 
able progress on the Continent before it affected the 
condition of England. Scholars needed patrons and pro- 
tectors, and Henry VII. was too parsimonious, and too 
much engrossed in political affairs, to have leisure or funds 
for the promotion of learning. 

The accession of Henry VIII. introduced an important 
change. The young sovereign had none of the vices of 
his father. Handsome, affable, generous ; possessed of 
enormous wealth ; enjoying the affection of his subjects, 
and holding the throne by a title which none could dispute ; 
he had fortunately received an excellent education, which 
his shrewd practical intellect enabled him to use to the 


in the Epistole Obscurorum: he wrote no such treatise as the Parva 
Logicalia. See a notice of him in Mosheim, p. 441. He was a 
Franciscan Monk; his Doctrinale was written in 1240. The Parva 
Logicalia, an unknown treatise, More wittily says, was so called from 
having so ‘little logic’ init. Referred to in the Epistola@ Obscur. as the 
constant handbook of students. Veteris illa Aristotelis dictata, Lupton 
translates ‘The old established readings from Aristotle,’ of which he 
says a bewildering number of books exist from which these Readings 
or Dictations might have been given. 
* Erasmus’ Epistles, A.D. 1513. 


30 Early Life 


best advantage. He was fond of pleasure and gaiety, as 
indeed was natural in one elevated to a throne at an early 
age, and succeeding to almost boundless hoards of money ; 
but he delighted also in learning, and was resolved to 
make his reign remarkable by his patronage of men of 
letters. Wolsey, his Prime Minister, ‘was a scholar, and 
a ripe and good one,’ according to the scholarship which 
was, however, beginning to be superseded, and he was, at 
all events, a munificent patron of learning. 

Scholars found favour at Court. Thomas More, one of 
Henry’s chief favourites, was esteemed the greatest genius 
in England, and enjoyed a splendid reputation even on the 
Continent for learning and wit. Fisher and Colet, Grocyn, 
Linacre, and William Latimer, were well known for their 
zeal in the revival of letters. Henry was looked upon as a 
second Augustus, the friend and patron of the muses ; and 
Erasmus, writing in a vein of somewhat jubilant anticipation, 
foretold that ‘the golden age was again returning to bless 
mankind,’ now that the Court of England was ‘ better 
furnished with learned men than any University.’? 
Erasmus himself, the most distinguished scholar of the 
age, conspicuous for the extent and variety of his learning, 
his taste, his wit, and his facile and vigorous pen, had paid 
a short visit to England in the reign of Henry VIL., but was 
now invited? to return and settle at one of the English 
Universities, 3 that he might introduce some of that revived 
taste which had already been diffused over many parts of 
the Continent. 

In 1510, therefore, just as Latimer was busy preparing 
for his first degree, Erasmus, the renowned leader of what 
was commonly styled ‘the new learning,’ came a second 
time to Cambridge. Fisher, the Chancellor of the 
University, was one of those who had invited him ; and 


t Letters to Banisius, and to Sir H. Guilford. 

2 He resided at Oxford a year: Michaelmas 1497-1498 ; see Seebohm. 
3 Lord Mountjoy’s letter of invitation is dated May 27, 1509. 

4 He came to England between August, 1509 and I5r0. 


Erasmus at Cambridge 31 


there were other friends of the new learning in England 
who were prepared with open arms to receive the great 
scholar, and eager to profit by his instructions. But 
Erasmus had also numerous and determined enemies, for 
he had called in question the teaching of the Church, and 
had censured the lives and morals of the clergy; and 
already the great majority of the ecclesiastics had begun 
to look askance upon this new learning, as likely to prove 
in the end a source of mischief and heresy. Shortly after 
his arrival in Cambridge, Erasmus was appointed Lady 
Margaret Professor of Divinity, and this position brought 
him into more decided conflict with the theologians of the 
University. In 1511 he published his famous Encomium 
Moria, or ‘ Praise of Folly,’ * an unrivalled satire, directed 
chiefly against the mendicant friars, the most ignorant and 
immoral of the religious orders. The exuberant wit of 
the book, rendered still more piquant by the amusing 
illustrations of Holbein, which made the jests patent to all 
readers, secured for it a circulation unprecedented in those 
times. The friars retaliated as well as they could, and 
vented many a bitter joke against the conceited little 
Grecian (‘Grzeculus iste’), but Erasmus, secure in the 
protection of his powerful patrons, heeded not their 
opposition, and continued his lectures on Greek and 
theology. 

At first his audience was small, and his scholars, he 
complains, weré so poor that they could not pay for their 
instruction. Soon, however, the fruit of his labours began 
to appear. In 1513 he boasts that Cambridge was not 
inferior to any University in Europe, and he especially 
rejoices in the vast progress made in theological learning.? 
By way of reward for his ill-requited services, a pension 
was granted to him from the living of Aldington, in Kent, 

* It was composed on his way from Italy to England, written in 
More’s house in Bucklersbury on his arrival, and published at More’s 


request : for date, etc., see Seebohm, Oxford Reformers of 1498. 
2 Erasmi Epistola, anno 1513. 


32 Early Life 


which was still paid to him when that village attracted the 
attention of all England, through the revelations of the 
Nun of Kent. 

A continued residence in England did not, however, 
suit the wandering and unsettled inclinations of Erasmus. 
In 1514 he left Cambridge and returned to the Continent ; 
but his influence did not cease to operate. Learning had 
received an impulse which no opposition could stay, and 
the University was able to supply from its own members 
illustrious scholars, well qualified to continue the work 
which Erasmus had begun. Under Croke, Wakefield, 
Smith, and Cheke, the study of polite letters was carried 
on with unflagging vigour ; and the great number of men 
of eminence who proceeded from Cambridge at that 
period, gave the most_conclusive proof of the extent to 
which fresh intellectual life had been infused into the 
University. 

Erasmus, it has been said, attacked the vices of the 
clergy, and satirised their ignorance ; and his labours, and 
those of his compeers in the revival of letters, were of 
essential service in preparing the way for the reformation 
of religion, the other great movement of the period. The 
two movements were, however, entirely distinct ; differing 
in their aims, and differing more widely in the treatment 
which they experienced from the great and the powerful. 
' The first twenty years of the sixteenth century was pre- 
eminently the age of the scholars; and philology and 
polite letters had a fair field, and ample opportunity to 
accomplish their mission among men. 

Unlike the Reformers, the scholars were everywhere 
courted and patronised by the great. They were the 
favourites of kings, and the popes were proud to promote 
their labours. They had the field all to themselves. 
Luther was still in his monastery, seeking peace with God ; 
Zwingle was at College ; Knox and Calvin were in their 
cradles. Whatever the scholars wished to accomplish 


The Revival of Learning a8 


was within their power. But it was merely or mainly an 
intellectual want they endeavoured to supply. They 
wished to purify the literary taste of the age, to point their 
contemporaries to the truesourcesand methods of knowledge 
and scientific inquiry, to purge the religion of the day from 
what was barbarousandincredible. Of any deeper necessity 
for true spiritual life they took no notice ; of any heartfelt 
longing for truth and reality in religion, of any earnest 
aspiration after the knowledge and love of God, they had 
nothing to say. These matters were beyond their depths ; 
they only aimed at such an improvement in the language 
and teaching of theology as might bring it into harmony 
with the more refined taste of the scholars of the age. 
They never dreamed of any reformation in religion, which 
might bring the poor and the ignorant, as well as the 
learned and refined, into contact with the same ever- 
lasting source of peace, and the same all-perfect model of 
spiritual life. And when the trial came, when the preaching 
of Luther compelled all men to decide between the 
contending parties, the great scholars, who had been 
conspicuous as the revivers of letters, were, in general, 
found no less averse to the teaching of the Reformers than 
to the ignorance and immorality of the monks. 

The Italian scholars seem, in many cases, to have 
practically relapsed into the Paganism of the old classical 
authors they so much admired. Linacre,t one of the 
earliest to introduce the new learning into England, 
glancing at the New Testament for the first time when 
on his death-bed, read our Lord’s words, ‘swear not at 
all,” and immediately closed the book with the exclama- 

* ‘To have been in Italy when Grocyn and Linacre were in Italy, 
between 1485 and 1491, was to have drunk at the fountain-head of 
reviving learning, and to have fallen under the fascinating influence of 
Lorenzo de Medici, an influence more likely to foster the selfish cold- 
ness of a semi-pagan philosophy than to inspire such feelings as those 
with which Colet seems to have returned from his visit to Italy.’ 


Seebohm, Oxford Reformers of 1498, p. 8. Politian, from whom Linacre 
learned Greek at Florence, was a man of profligate character 


x 3 


34 Early Life 


tion, ‘either this is not true, or we are not Christians.’ 
Many of the most distinguished English scholars were 
opposed to the Reformation. Fisher, More, and Gardiner, 
among the chief patrons of learning in England, were also 
(especially the last two) chief among the enemies of the 
Reformers. Erasmus himself, the greatest of all the 
scholars, who only wanted a little more energy of 
character to have been one of the greatest of the 
Reformers, after halting all his life between the two 
contending parties, died at last in the communion of 
that Church whose authority he had done so much to 
shake. Once again, as in the days of St. Paul, it was 
the ‘foolish things of the world that were chosen to con- 
found the wise’; simple earnest men found that life and 
truth which the profoundly wise and learned were too 
refined and fastidious to seek. The scholars did, indeed, 
awaken the mind of the age ; but when the nations, longing 
after some better spiritual sustenance for their souls, came 
asking bread, the scholars did not understand the nature 
of their wants, they were unable to supply them, and had 
to give place to the Reformers. Cicero and the humani-, 
ties were excellent for men who only wanted to gratify a | 
cultivated taste ; but Christ and the Gospel alone could | 
suffice for the weary soul that longed for life and peace. | 
Erasmus, by his residence in Cambridge, had wonder- 
fully promoted the revival of learning in England ; he was 
also instrumental in communicating an impulse to the 
Reformation in this country. When he left Cambridge he 
devoted his energy for some time to the production of a 
good and authoritative edition of the Greek New Testa- 
ment. After two years’ hard labour, this, the editio princeps 
of the New Testament in the original, appeared at Basle, 
in 1516, with a Latin translation and notes by Erasmus, 
The Word of God in any of the vernacular tongues had 
long been rigorously prohibited by the Church; but no 
evil consequences were anticipated from a book which 


Bilney’s Story 35 


was sealed except to scholars; and high ecclesiastical 
dignitaries approved and patronised it. One college in 
Cambridge (and that not improbably Latimer’s college of 
Clare Hall') did, indeed, distinguish itself by forbidding 
the introduction even of this Greek New Testament within 
its walls ; but Erasmus’s reputation as a scholar, and kindly 
recollections of his personal instructions, would naturally 
secure for it a cordial reception in the University. And it | 
was to a copy of this New Testament, read by a single — 
devout student, that the origin of the Reformation move- 
ment in the University may be traced. 

Among the students at Cambridge at that time, Thomas 
Bilney, feeble and diminutive in person (‘ Little Bilney,’ 
Latimer calls him), was conspicuous for his ability, his 
energy, and his almost ascetic devotion. He had passed 
through something of the same mental struggle as Luther : 
like him, he had been intended for the law, and had for- 
saken it for the Church ; and, like him, he, by fasts and 
mortifications, sought peace for his soul. But his story is 
best told in his own simple words :— 

‘I also, miserable sinner, before I could come ~unto 
Christ, had spent all that I had upon ignorant physicians, 
that is to say, unlearned hearers of confession; so that 
there was but small force of strength left in me (who of 
nature was but weak), small store of money, and very little 
wit or understanding ; for they appointed me fastings, 
watchings, buying of pardons and masses ; in ali which 
things (as I now understand), they sought rather their own 
gain than the salvation of my sick and languishing soul. 
But at last I heard speak of Jesus, even then when the New 
Testament was first set forth by Erasmus [i.e., A.D. 1516] ; 
which when I understood to be eloquently done by him, 
being allured rather by the Latin than by the Word of 
God (for at that time I knew not what it meant), I bought 


The master of Clare Hall, Nattares, was the most determined of 
the adherents of the old learning. 


36 Early Life 


it, even by the providence of God—as I do now well 
understand and perceive—and, at the first reading, as I 
well remember, I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul 
(Oh most sweet and comfortable sentence to my soul !) in 
1 Tim. i.: “It is a true saying, and*worthy of all men to 
be embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners, of whom I am the chief and principal.” This one 
sentence, through God’s instruction and inward working, 
which I did not then perceive, did so exhilarate my heart, 
being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being 
almost in despair, that immediately I felt a marvellous 
comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones 
leaped for joy.’* ’ 
It was a repetition of the experience through which 
Luther had just passed in his cell at Erfurt; but as yet 
the name of the great German monk had never been 
mentioned in England. Bilney, having found peace and 
comfort to himself, became the centre of a new movement 
in the University. Timid and retiring, his influence was 
exerted in secret ; he never appeared as a public teacher 
of any new system, but, in private intercourse with his 
friends, he talked to them of life and hope. Gradually 
and imperceptibly the leaven of his teaching began to 
operate. Tindale was at Cambridge in 1519, and may 
have learned from Bilney that supreme love for the Word 
of God, and that intense desire to make it accessible to his 
countrymen, which were the ruling passions of his life. It 
was only by slow degrees, indeed, and after the lapse of 
many years, that the influence of Bilney, in promoting the 
Reformation, became apparent ; and the retiring modesty / 
of the man has prevented his receiving that honour, as the 
first English Reformer, which so justly belongs to him. 
There was, no doubt, a movement towards a Reformation 
external to the Universities, and which may be traced in 
part to the teaching of Wickliffe ; but that grand move- 
* Foxe, vol. iv. pp. 635, etc. ; Bilney’s Letters to Tunstal. 


Luther Echoes pemnk 


ment which issued in the establishment of a Reformed 
Church in England originated_in the Universities; and — 
must be ascribed to the simple, earnest piety of Bilney. . 

By and by the reputation of Luther spread to England, 
and his boldness encouraged those who sympathised with 
his teaching. Copies of his works were eagerly demanded, 
and were so extensively circulated in England that Wolsey 
issued a commission to the Bishops, Deans, and heads of 
colleges, ordering them to make rigorous search for any of 
Luther’s books, and to punish all who refused to deliver 
them up.* The example of Luther was soon followed by 
greater activity on the part of the students of Scripture in 
Cambridge. Theology had for centuries been taught from 
the works of the School-men, and especially from the 
‘Sentences.’ One of Bilney’s disciples, however, George 
Stafford, introduced an important innovation. When he 
was appointed Reader of Divinity, he discarded the old 
text-books, and not only read lectures.from St. Augustine, 
but expounded Holy Scripture itself, both Old Testament 
and New, in the original languages to crowds of listening 
students. 

Such, therefore, were the movements that were occupy- 
ing all minds at Cambridge during the years when 
Latimer was in residence ; how, then, it may be asked, 
was he affected by this revival of learning and of religion 
that was taking place around him? It is not difficult to 
answer this question. The mere fact that his name 
never occurs in connection with the early stage of either 
of these movements is a significant indication of the part 
which he played.2 And his writings supply abundant 
evidence as to his opinions in those years of his life. 
From the first he ranged himself among the opponents 
of Erasmus and Bilney. He looked with suspicion on all 


t The commission is in Strype, Eccl. Mem. I. pt. ii. p. 20. 
? He has by some writers been confounded with William Latimer, 
of Oxford, and praised for a learning which he did not possess, 


38 Early Life 


this new learning as a dangerous sign of the times. Greek, 
which some Churchmen thought the native language of 
heresy, he never learned. ‘I understand no Greek,’ he 
said, when on his trial at Oxford in the very last year of 
his life ; and, though we may, perhaps, be justified in 
explaining his assertion in a somewhat qualified sense, yet 
it is clear, from his occasional references to Greek, that he 
was the merest tyro in that language. His study lay in 
those school-doctors whom the Church had for centuries 
honoured as the pure fountains of wisdom, and the 
standard of orthodoxy; he was learned in Duns Scotus 
and Dorbell, in Hugo de Victore, and, above all, in Thomas 
Aquinas, the ‘ Angel of the Schools.’ ‘ 

He, too, like Luther, and like Bilney, was seeking rest 
and peace to his soul; and, for a time, he seemed to find 
it in devotion to the ceremonies of the Church. He 
shut his ears resolutely against all proposals to change or 
reform the traditions of the Fathers ; and, when the voice 
of controversy began to rise high in the University, he 
sighed for the peace of the cloister, and almost resolved 
to enter a monastery, and take the vows of a religious. 
Yet with all this his mind was not at ease, and death 
seemed terrible to him; and this fear, also, tended to 
drive him, as it had driven Luther, into the presumed 
protection of the sanctity of monastic life. ‘I have 
thought, in times past,’ he wrote in after years,? ‘ that if J 
had been a friar and in a cowl, I could not have been 
damned nor afraid of death, and I have been minded 
many times to have been a friar when I was sore sick and 
diseased.’ 

Never did any priest more conscientiously observe all 
the rubrics of the missal. ‘I remember how scrupulous 
I was in my time of blindness and ignorance : when I 
should say mass, I have put in water [among the sacra- 
mental wine] twice or thrice for failing ; insomuch when 

¥ Letter to Sir Edward Bayuton ; Remains, p. 332, 


Luther Echoes 39 


I have been at my memento, I have had a grudge in my 
conscience, fearing that I had not put in water enough.’ 
One little incident of the period is amusingly characteristic 
of Latimer’s life and belief in those days :-— 

“T was once called to one of my kinsfolk (it was at that 
time when I had taken degree in Cambridge, and was 
made Master of Art), I was called, I say, to one of my 
kinsfolk which was very sick, and died immediately after 
my coming. Now there was an old cousin of mine which, 
after the man was dead, gave me a wax candle in my 
hand, and commanded me to make certain crosses over 
him that was dead; for she thought the devil should run 
away by and by. Now I took:the candle, but I could not 
cross him as she would have me to do; for I had never 
seen it afore. Now she, perceiving that I could not do it, 
with a great anger took the candle out of my hand, saying, 
“Tt is pity that thy father spendeth so much money upon 
thee.” And so she took the candle, and crossed and 
blessed him, so that he was sure enough.’ ? 

Devout and upright himself, and conscious of his own 
sincerity, he saw no need for any reformation of the lives 
or teaching of the clergy. His great anxiety was that all 
' men-should, like himself, yield implicit obedience to the 
~~Church; and as heresy seemed to spread amongst the 
students, his zeal urged him to warn them of the danger of 
their proceedings, and to entreat them to follow what he 
believed to be the only path of security and peace. 
Stafford’s innovations excited his liveliest indignation. 
‘Perceiving the youth of the University inclined to the 
reading of the Scriptures, and leaving off the school- 
doctors, he came amongst the youth, gathered together of 
daily custom to their disputations ; and there most elo- 
quently made to them an oration, dissuading them from 


* Sermons, I. p. 138. The memento in the mass occurs shortly before 
the time when the priest communicates. 
2 Sermons, p. 499. 


40 Early Life 


this new-fangled kind of study of the Scriptures, and 
vehemently persuaded them to study of the school- 
authors.’ Till the close of 1523, therefore, Latimer was 
one of the great champions of the Church and the old 
learning in the University. He was then nearly forty 
years of age, and apparently there was no great risk of 
any change taking place in his opinions. The rashness 
and impetuosity of youth were over. Probably of all the 
Cambridge men of the time, the devout University Cross- 
bearer was the very last whose defection the Church would 
have feared ; the very last whom any intelligent observer 
would have selected as destined to be the great popular 
preacher of the Reformation in England. 

One brief glance at the progress of political affairs in 
Europe during these eventful years will enable us to 
understand the position of parties, which was not without 
its influence upon the great religious changes in England. 
Two powerful monarchs were then contending for 
supremacy in Europe—Charles V., King of Spain and the 
Low Countries and Emperor of Germany, and Francis I, 
King of France. Both were young, able, and ambitious ; 
and for some time their power seemed equally matched. 
In this state of affairs on the Continent, the alliance of 
Henry was eagerly sought by both the rivals ; and England 
once again became of importance in the counsels of 
Europe. One of the first acts of Henry’s reign, destined 
also to be one of the most momentous, was to consummate 
his long-projected marriage with Catherine of Arragon ; 
and this naturally inclined him to espouse the interests of 
Spain. 

War with France ensued, carried on not without con- 
siderable success on the part of Henry, and largely 
instrumental in dissipating his father’s enormous treasures ; 


t Latimer’s Remains, p. 27. 
2 In the Proctor’s Accounts for 1522, he is appointed one of twelve 
University preachers. - Foxe, vol. vii. pp. 438 and 770, 


Wolsey’s Ambition 41 


a result of no small importance in many of the future 
transactions of his reign. It was during the French war 
also that Wolsey, already a favourite with Henry, rose to 
almost supreme power in Church and State. Besides 
holding many minor lucrative ecclesiastical preferments, 
he was Archbishop of York, and Papal Legate ; and was 
at the same time Lord High Chancellor of England. His 
unrivalled talent for business, his indefatigable energy, his 
skill in discovering men able to serve him, and his happy 
art of securing their affectionate attachment, made him for 
many years virtually the sovereign of the kingdom. His am- 
bition, however, aimed at something higher even than this. 
He aspired to the Popedom ; and he hoped, by flattering 
the ambition of Charles and of Francis, both of whom 
assiduously courted him, to be elevated to the Papal chair. 

The election of Wolsey might have altered the history 
of Europe. Though no friend of the Reformed doctrines, 
though by no means a model of clerical propriety, yet 
no one saw more clearly the absolute necessity of some 
reformation in the lives and teaching of the clergy, and 
especially of the monastic orders. Under his steady 
guidance the Church would have presented a firmer and 
more united front to the rising storms of the sixteenth 
century ; some compromise would have been effected 
with the demands of the Reformers ; and an attempt would 
have been made to introduce some of those reforms which 
the condition of the Church so urgently required. Twice 
Wolsey was filled with the hope of reaching the great 
object of his ambition. But on both occasions Charles, 
after promising his assistance, had secretly used all his 
energy to oppose his election. Wolsey was not the man 
to forget this treachery on the part of the Emperor; he 
excited Henry’s jealousy of the growing power of Charles ; 
and after the Battle of Pavia, he induced his sovereign to 
enter into an alliance with France to oppose the power of 
Spain. In this rooted hatred of Wolsey to Charles, and 


42 Early Life 


his eager desire for some vengeance on the treacherous 
monarch, another element was contributed towards that 
complicated strife which in England led to the Reformation. 

Such was the position of parties about the year 1525. 
Henry was still living in peace and love with his Spanish 
spouse, undisturbed, to all appearance, by any fire of 
passion, and so far as was known, by any qualms of. 
conscience. Anne Boleyn, acquiring accomplishments at 
the Courts of Francis and Margaret of Valois, or secluded 
from observation in the retirement of Hever Castle, was 
as yet unvisited by any dreams of her future eminence. 
Wolsey, busied with schemes for replenishing his master’s 
empty exchequer, planning magnificent designs for 
reforming the Church and advancing learning, had not 
forgotten the intrigues of Charles, and was biding his 
time for revenge. Luther had burned the Papal decrees, 
and had defied the power of Rome. The Pope was 
anxiously deliberating how to stave off the threatened 
General Council, and to pacify the universal demand for 
a reformation. In England a few unknown scholars in 
the Universities, and a few mechanics in the towns and 
villages of the Eastern Counties, were studying their 
Bibles in secret, and were perceiving to their own utter 
amazement, the complete discrepancy between the teach- 
ing of Scripture and the doctrines of the Church which 
pretended to found its teaching upon Scripture. Charles 
and Francis were occupied with their rivalry for empire 
and supremacy. All were working out their own designs 
without concert or common purpose; and yet all were 
unconsciously ‘doing whatsoever the hand and counsel of 
God determined before to be done.’ (Acts iv. 28.) All 
were in reality promoting the same great end ; and when 
the appointed time at length arrived, the causes thus 
operating apart, would be all, by the will of the Great 
Disposer of Events, compelled to combine their efficacy 
for the accomplishment of the predestined work, 


CHAPTER II 


FROM LATIMER’S CONVERSION TO HIS APPEARANCE BEFORE 
WOLSEY 


(1524-1526) 


HE progress of what were called Lutheran opinions 
in the University of Cambridge began at length to 
attract the attention of the authorities. Inthe parliament of 
1523, the only one summoned during Wolsey’s supremacy 
(for the Cardinal, like Stafford, was averse to parliaments), 
it was resolved that ‘two of the Bishops should be desired 
to repair unto the University of Cambridge for examina- 
tion, reformation, and correction of such errors as then 
seemed and were reported to reign amongst the students 
and scholars of the same, as well touching the Lutheran 
sect and opinions as otherwise.’ 

The suggestion came from one of the Bishops, probably 
from Fisher, the Chancellor of the University, who had 
just published a refutation of Luther’s teaching; and 
other prelates confirmed the necessity of taking some 
precautionary measures to arrest the progress of the 
Reformed opinions. A rigorous inquisition at that period 
would unquestionably have done much injury to the cause 
of the Reformation in the University : no steps, however, 
were taken to enforce the recommendation of the Bishops. 
Wolsey had to be consulted beforeany active measures could 
be adopted, and he ‘ expressly inhibited’ the threatened 

43 


44 Latimer’s Conversion 


visitation of the University, ‘by means whereof,’ as it 
was urged against him on his impeachment, ‘the said 
error crept more abroad, and took greater place.’ 

It may seem strange that Wolsey should thus, as it 
were, interfere to shelter heretics from detection and 
punishment ; but the Cardinal had his own reasons for 
this procedure. He rather took a pleasure in thwarting 
the Bishops, so as to make them sensible of his superior 
authority ; he was, besides, by no means inclined to be 
rigorous in searching for heresy, or severe in punishing 
it ; he was, moreover, busied in planning his magnificent 
College at Oxford, and as he designed to fill it with the 
most promising young men in England, he did not wish 
to take any step that might unnecessarily alienate the 
youth of Cambridge; finally, he meditated a general 
reform of the whole ecclesiastical system of England, and 
therefore resented the contemplated visitation of the 
Bishops as an officious interference with his great design. 

Wolsey’s ideas of the reformation that the Church 
required were somewhat indefinite, and certainly would 
be by no means sweeping or thorough; still it is important 
to observe that it was not merely the Reformers who 
maintained that some reformation of the innumerable 
abuses of the Church was urgently required. The great 
authorities in the Church had long seen this necessity, but 
had felt themselves utterly at a loss to cope with abuses 
that had existed for so many ages, and which seemed 
inseparably incorporated with the very constitution of the 
Church. 

It was in the interval of peace thus strangely procured 
by the unexpected protection of Wolsey, that Latimer 
was converted to the opinions of the Reformers. It has 
already been noticed that he graduated as Bachelor of 
Divinity in the year which ended at Michaelmas, 1524. 
It was required that on the occasion of taking his degree 

t Herbert, p. 228 ; Article 43 of Wolsey’s impeachment. 


Bilney and Latimer 45 


he should deliver a public discourse on some theological 
subject. With the characteristic zeal of an ardent lover 
of the Church, indignant at the success of the heresy 
which was everywhere finding disciples, he directed his 
whole oration against Philip Melancthon, the eminent 
German Reformer, who had recently impugned the 
authority of the school-doctors, and had maintained that 
they must all be tested by the supreme standard of 
Holy Scripture. Bilney was present at this intemperate 
declamation, and perceived that the honest preacher was 
‘zealous without knowledge.’ In all probability Bilney 
had often before listened to Latimer’s violent denuncia- 
tions of the new opinions, and looked upon him as the 
most determined of his opponents; but now something 
in the preacher’s manner, or some casual expressions in 
his oration, revealed to Bilney an experience like that 
which he had himself passed through, and from which 
he had found so happy a release in the study of the 
Holy Scripture. He determined, therefore, to seek an 
interview with Latimer, not without the hope that even 
this opponent might be brought to seek for peace and 
life in the Word of God, and not in the subtilties of the 
school-men or the ritual of the Church. 

He went to Latimer in his study, and desired him ‘ for 
God’s sake to hear his confession.’ ‘I did so,’ says 
Latimer; ‘and to say the truth, by his confession I 
learned more than before in many years.’* We cannot 
doubt what the tenor of Bilney’s confession would be. 
Latimer had just been denouncing the study of the Ho 
Scripture as dangerous to the soul, and had recommended 
his hearers to seek for peace and spiritual life in implicit 
obedience to the teaching of the Church and the prescrip- 
tions of her ministers. In reply to all this, Bilney would 
repeat the touching story of his own spiritual conflict— 
how he had gone about seeking to find health and comfort 


* Latimer’s Sermons, p. 334. 


46 Latimer’s Conversion 


to his sick and languishing soul; how he had applied to 
those physicians that Latimer so much commended, and 
had diligently used all their remedies, but had found no 
benefit ; how he had fasted and done penance, how he 
had prayed and mortified himself, till he was more dead 
than alive, and yet he had not thereby received any 
assurance of peace with God, but was filled with despair ; 
how, at last, he had read-that Book which Latimer had 
condemned as fatal to the soul, and all at once he had 
felt himself healed as by the hand of the Divine Phy- 
sician. Was he to abandon his peace, and go back again 
to his penance and despair ? 

The case was beyond the limits of Latimer’s narrow 
experience. He had imagined that these students of 
Scripture were proud, obstinate heretics, outwardly 
despising the ordinances of the Church, but inwardly 
ill at ease in their own minds ; and here was the very 
leader of these heretics in the University, a simple honest 
soul, who had found that peace which Latimer had been 
seeking in vain. His wonted confidence in his old pre- 
scriptions failed him. The simple story of Bilney’s 
spiritual conflicts, uttered in the solemn silence of 
Latimer’s study, awoke in his heart thoughts and 
emotions too deep for utterance. It was a revelation 
of a truth and a life of which he had never heard 
before ; of that very peace and health for which he had 
been yearning for years. 

Latimer’s first act, we may well believe, would be to 
procure that New Testament which he had so often 
denounced, and to read and study for himself. And as 
he read, the clouds and darkness passed away, and the 
true light shone in from the eternal heavens beyond. 
Instead of an austere Deity, needing to be propitiated 
by penances and painful watchings, there rose up before 
him the blessed revelation of free forgiveness and peace 
by the blood of Christ, and the glorious vision of the 


A Changed Man 47 


Divine life of Christ, so widely different from the blind 
monkish idea of a noble life, and yet felt at once by the 
honest heart to be the perfect type of all that is good and 
true. That peace which he had so earnestly sought in 
the multiplied observances of a ceremonial devotion, was 
here freely offered to all who would in faith and humility 
accept it. He no longer sighed for the security and 
sanctity of the monastery ; for the same Scriptures which 
assured him of forgiveness and peace, called him to a 
nobler life of energy and action in the busy world out- 
side the convent walls. 

The change in Latimer’s life and opinions could not 
long be hid: the very openness and frank impetuosity 
of his character would render any concealment impossible. 
In a very short time it was obvious to all in Cambridge 
that the University Cross-bearer, the former opponent of 
all Lutheran opinions, had gone over to the side of the 
Reformers. A change so striking and so abrupt could 
not but attract attention; even the most bigoted could 
not deny its genuineness, for the character of Latimer 
was above suspicion. The pious students of Holy Scrip- 
ture saw in it a repetition of the great scene on the way 
to Damascus: the Head of the Church, who had called 
Saul from persecuting the Christians to be the Great 
Apostle of the Gentiles, had again curbed their chief 
opponent in the height of his career, and sent him forth 
to preach that faith which once he despised. 

The precise date of this grand occurrence in Latimer’s 
history can be fixed with tolerable accuracy. It was 
nearly coincident with his graduation as Bachelor of 
Divinity, which the University Registers show took place 
between Michaelmas, 1523, and Michaelmas, 1524. In 
all probability his conversion may be assigned to the 
spring of 1524. 

We must not overrate the extent of the change which 
had taken place in his life and opinions, Bilney and his 


48 Latimer’s Conversion e 


friends had not separated themselves from the communion 
and teaching of the Church. They had no new creed; 
no new form of worship. Latimer remained, therefore, 
as before, a priest of the Church in which he had been 
baptized and ordained; he officiated at her altars, as 
before ; and preached, as before, in her pulpits. On two 
great points, however, he had learned something new. 
He understood now that the laborious system of penance, 
intercession of saints, invocation of the Virgin, and other 
ceremonies of the Church, all intended (as they were 
usually understood) to atone for sin and procure peace 
with an offended God, were superfluous, and worse than 
superfluous, for Scripture plainly declared that Christ had 
come and made peace already. No works of men could 
make atonement for sin ; no saints, no angels could pro- 
cure men salvation ; and so far as these tended to shut out 
from men’s view the only Saviour, they were abuses 
against which Latimer now saw it his duty to warn the 
people. He learned also to form a widely different idea 
of the life which it became a Christian to lead. The 
voluntary works of man’s invention, which he had formerly 
supposed to be the highest exhibitions of piety—the 
creeping to the cross on Good Friday, the decorating of 
images, the offering of candles before the shrines of 
saints—these he now perceived to be far less noble than 
the careful performance of the duties which God had 
enjoined—visiting the sick, relieving the poor, teaching 
the ignorant, leading all men to repentance. 

On other points Latimer’s opinions remained for the 
present unchanged, and only altered slowly in his future 
career. Probably, in consequence of his disgust with his 
former scholastic studies, he from this time manifested a 
disinclination to theological controversy, and occupied 
himself entirely with matters of obvious practical impor- 
tance ; and down to the close of his life, long after even 
the cautious Cranmer had in the main adopted the creed 


Bilney’s Influence 49 


of the Continental Reformers, Latimer continued to believe 
and to teach some of those doctrines which are usually 
considered most characteristically the errors of the Church 
of Rome. He was in truth the most practical and the 
most conservative of all the Reformers. Remove the 
abuses that encouraged immorality and superstition, allow 
the Holy Scriptures to be freely circulated and read, and 
Latimer would have permitted the Church in other 
matters to teach as she had taught before. He wished no 
great change of creed; he was no advocate for the 
sweeping removal of institutions which had been the 
growth of centuries. 

Bilney was now Latimer’s constant companion in his 
study and in his expeditions abroad. One favourite walk 
they had where they were daily to be seen, and which the 
wits of the University nicknamed the ‘ Heretics’ Hill.’ 
Under Bilney’s influence, too, his studies were completely 
changed ; ‘he began to smell the Word of God,’ he says 
in his own quaint language, ‘and forsook the school- 
doctors and such fooleries.’ He shared also in those 
works of charity and benevolence for which Bilney had 
been long conspicuous. Together the two friends went 
to instruct and to relieve those outcasts for whom no man 
cared; they were especially assiduous in visiting the 
prisoners in the town of Cambridge ; and they used to 
preach in the lazarcots or fever hospitals, and did not 
disdain to render to the unhappy sufferers those offices of 
kindly charity which were in those days too frequently 
denied them. 

In these new studies, and this happy, friendly inter- 
course, and active Christian charity, Latimer spent the 
rest of the year 1524. Wolsey’s protection screened the 
little company of converts from any persecution; and 
though Latimer had doubtless excited suspicion by the 
change of his opinions, it is pleasing to observe, from the 

t Sermons, Pp. 335« 


4 


50 Latimer’s Conversion 


few records of the period that have been preserved to us, 
that he had not forfeited the high position which his 
character and learning had previously secured him in the 
University. 

Thus on the 28th of August, 1524, a deed was executed, 
conveying to Latimer and others certain lands in order to 
find a priest to celebrate mass in the chapel of Clare Hall, 
for the soul of one John-a-Bolton.* The bequest is con- 
clusive evidence of the esteem in which Latimer continued 
to be held ; and at the same time proves that he had not 
yet learned, as he subsequently did, to look mpon purgatory 
as ‘a pleasant and profitable fiction, born and brought 
forth in Rome, by means of which the Church had got 
more by dead men’s tributes and gifts than any emperor 
had by taxes and tallages of them that were alive.’ ? 

To the close of 1524 also belongs the earliest of Latimer’s 
letters that has been preserved. It refers merely to the 
election of a High Steward for the University of Cam- 
bridge, a matter of little consequence now, though it 
produced the usual excitement in the little academic world 
of the time, and is of interest to us solely as affording a 
glimpse into Latimer’s position and pursuits at this period 
of his career. 


‘To Dr. Greene3 (Vice-Chancellor of the University). 


‘When J arrived last night at Kimbolton, most worshipful 
father, on my way to my native place, I soon learned from 
Mr. Thorpe’ [unknown personage, perhaps the parish 
priest of Kimbolton] ‘and others of good credit, after 
mutual greetings and compliments, that nothing would at 
present give more pleasure to Mr. Wingfield’ [Sir Richard 
Wingfield, of Kimbolton Castle, a courtier in high favour 
with Henry] ‘than to succeed to the office which Mr. 


® Cooper’s Athenee Cantabrigienses. 

2 Sermons, p. 50. 

3 The original in Latin, from the Parker MSS., in Cambridge, is 
printed in Latimer’s Remains, p. 467. 


A Cambridge Election 51 


Lovell held amongst us’ [office of High Steward of the 
University : Sir Thomas Lovell had died May 25th, 1524]. 
‘Not that a man so full of honours, and so signally enriched 
with abundance of all things, looks upon so trifling a salary 
as any object; but being a man of a noble mind, he is 
extremely anxious to be on terms of intimacy with men 
of letters and cultivators of the Muses. And so anxiously 
does he cherish this wish, so eagerly does he seek the 
office, that as we had nothing to allege in excuse, except 
a pledge previously made to the honoured More’ [Sir 
Thomas More], ‘we are told that More has been already 
prevailed upon by the King’s solicitation to give place to 
Wingfield, so that we may, without comprising our honour, 
accede to Wingfield’s wishes. It is unquestionable that 
by his singular politeness he makes every one in this 
neighbourhood his friend, and secures their attachment 
by deeds of kindness; and is, in short, a universal 
benefactor. 

‘It is a matter, therefore, for you to consider with your 
customary good sense. On you especially depends the 
whole business in which the interest, the credit, the 
splendour of the University, are so much involved. 
Thorpe, whom we both admire so much, and who is so 
devoted to you, thinks that nothing could be more 
beneficial to the interests of our literary republic than 
granting this favour. For, to say a single word for 
Wingfield, who is nowadays more in the royal confidence 
than he, or readier to speak for his friends to the King ? 
Or, who among the lay nobles is a greater friend of 
learning? But perhaps I shall appear to you rather 
officious than discreet in speaking so plainly to your 
worship. It is Thorpe, however, who has instigated me. 
My zeal, my sense of duty, my affection to our literary 
republic have impelled me. Forgive one who, if he errs, 
errs through good intentions. 

‘Farewell, your worship. I write very late at night, 


as 


52 Latimer’s Conversion 


after a day of equinoctial rains; half suffocated and 
almost stupefied with the heat of the sun, the fumes of 
the victuals, and the rest of the feasting. 
‘From Kimbolton, the day after St. Edward’s Day’ [i.c., 
October 14th]. 
‘Your Latimer.’ 


We know not what family necessity had called him 
home at this time ; but ina large family, whose members 
were all grown up, and many of them aged, such occasions 
would of course occur. The letter is written in elegant 
and terse Latin (Latimer’s Latin style, indeed, is much 
superior to his English), and though it throws no light 
upon that interesting phase of his new life on which he 
had entered, a subject to which he never refers in his 
letters, it is the production evidently of an active man, 
shrewd and discreet in the conduct of business, and 
holding a position of honourable esteem in the University. 

Wolsey’s arrangements for the magnificent college at 
Oxford, which was to perpetuate his name, were in the 
meantime approaching completion. The Pope’s bull had 
armed him with authority to provide the necessary funds 
for his enormous outlay by the suppression of some of the 
smaller religious houses, a precedent which was not for- 
gotten in subsequent years ; and he spared no pains in 
searching for young men of learning and ability to equip 
his college. Cambridge (thanks to the impulse which 
Erasmus’s presence had given) then abounded in such 
students ; and Wolsey’s agents were sent with ample 
commission to secure, by liberal rewards and promises, 
such students as were likely to communicate a lustre to 
the new seat of learning. 

Their visit was a highly successful one. Some eight or 
ten of the choice young men of Cambridge were induced 
to accept their munificent invitations, and were in a few 
months transferred from the banks of the Cam to what 


Cambridge at Oxford 53 


was then known as St. Frideswide’s or Cardinal College, 
Oxford. Among those selected were Richard Cox, John 
Clarke, John Fryer, Godfrey Harman, Henry Sumner, 
William Betts, John Fryth, Goodman, and Radley. They 
were all chosen on account of their abilities; and if any 
suspicion of heresy was whispered against any of them, 
Wolsey was not the man to attach very much importance 
to it. It is not a little singular, however, that all those 
named were more or less under the influence of Bilney’s 
teaching ; and their transference to Oxford was thus the 
means of propagating on a fresh field that truth which 
Bilney had found in the study of Scripture. For some 
years after their removal all continued quiet, and no 
danger was apprehended; but in 1528 an alarming 
explosion of heresy occurred in Cardinal College, to the 
dismay of the University authorities. Inquiry revealed to 
them the source from which the heresy had been intro- 
duced into Oxford; and sad reflections were made on 
Wolsey’s indiscretion. ‘Would God,’ said one of the 
heads of houses, ‘My Lord’s grace had never been 
motioned to call Clarke, nor any other Cambridge man, 
into his most towardly college. We were clear, without 
blot or suspicion, till they came ; and some of them long 
time hath had a shrewd name.’ * 

During the greater part of the year 1525, Latimer, 
Bilney, and Stafford continued to teach without molesta- 
tion. The authorities had not yet taken alarm at the 
progress of reformed opinions in England; and as has 
been already noticed, Latimer only by slow degrees 
departed from the ordinary teaching of the Church. 
The free forgiveness of sins by the atomement of 
Christ was plainly preached as it had never been 
preached before, and gross practical abuses, tending 

* Their names are found in the lists of those incorporated at Oxford, 
November 5 and December 7, 1525.—Wood’s Athene. 


2 Dr. London, Warden of New College, to Bishop Longland. 
Original in the State Paper Office. 


54 Latimer’s Conversion 


to conceal Christ and His salvation from the eyes of the 
people were attacked and condemned. But there was no 
open contradiction or denial of any of the commonly- 
received articles of the Church’s creed; there was no 
departure from the customary ceremonies of religious 
worship ; no declaration of hostility against the Church’s 
authority. Men had their suspicions of the tendency of 
the teaching of Latimer and his friends; but it would 
have been difficult to convict them of heresy even in an 
ecclesiastical court. So late, indeed, as the month of 
July, 1525, West, Bishop of Ely, a man by no means 
inclined to look with favour upon the progress of reforma- 
tion in the Church, granted Bilney a licence to preach 
anywhere in his diocese,™ so little danger was as yet 
apprehended from the movement that had been begun in 
the University. 

Thus left perfectly free to preach their opinions, Latimer 
and Bilney were gradually forming for themselves a 
numerous party of disciples in the University. Their 
influence was continually on the increase, and accessions 
were daily made to the list of earnest students of Holy 
Scripture. Among the most important of those recent 
converts was Robert Barnes, Prior of the monastery of 
Augustine Friars, in Cambridge, a man destined to play 
a somewhat conspicuous part in the subsequent trans- 
actions of Henry’s reign. He had studied at Louvaine, 
where he acquired a distinguished reputation asa brilliant 
classical scholar; and on his coming to Cambridge, his 
lectures on Cicero, Terence, and Plautus, were thronged 
with admirers of the classics. He expounded St. Paul 
also, but without well understanding the Apostle’s meaning, 
and chiefly, it would appear, as a means for giving vent to 
his fierce polemical temper and love of personalities—faults 


* “Item, 23° die Julii, 1525: Dominus concessit licentiam Magistro 
Thomz Bilney ad przedicandum per totam dioc. Elien., ad benepla- 
citum suum duraturam.’—West’s Register. 


Preacher and Bishop 55 


which more or less appeared during the whole of his 
career. The influence of Bilney, Stafford, and Latimer, 
led him to a better appreciation of the teaching of St. 
Paul, and though he did not at once openly avow himself 
an adherent of their doctrines, he was known to be friendly 
to them ; and his position as head of a monastery exempt 
from episcopal control, enabled him to render them very 
essential service in a critical emergency. 

At length rumours of the rapid increase of Lutheran 
opinions throughout England began to excite serious alarm 
in the minds of the ecclesiastical authorities ; and towards 
the close of 1525 the suspicion seems to have dawned 
upon the Bishop of Ely that he had, perhaps, been some- 
what too easy and remiss, in so long tolerating what was 
possibly heretical and dangerous to the interests of the 
Church and the University. Loud complaints were made 
especially against the preaching of Latimer, but the Bishop 
wisely determined to hear and judge for himself, taking 
care to keep his purpose secret, that the preacher might 
have no opportunity of making any, special preparation 
for his coming. He ascertained atcordingly the day on 
which it was Latimer’s turn to preach in Latin in the 
University Church ; and coming up unexpectedly from 
Ely, he entered the church just as the preacher had well 
begun his sermon. 

Latimer acted with admirable sagacity and presence of 
mind. He waited calmly till the Bishop and his splendid 
retinue were seated, and then resumed his preaching, but 
skilfully changed his subject. ‘A new audience,’ he 
adroitly remarked, ‘ especially of such rank, déserves a 
new theme.’ He selected, therefore, as the aging pont 
of afresh discourse, the words of St. Paul, ‘Christ being 
come, a High Priest of good things to come,’ etc. (Heb. 
ix. 11). These words naturally led him to speak of the 
office and duties of a priest, and especially of a bishop or 
high priest, and to treat of the life of Christ as the great 


56 Latimer’s Conversion 


pattern and model to which all priests and bishops should 
conform. One can easily imagine the powerful effect of 
such a subject treated in Latimer’s homely, clear, graphic 
manner. The carelessness of the clergy was the great 
scandal and abuse of the day, and in a sermon preached to 
an audience of clergymen, Latimer’s theme was peculiarly 
important. His hearers could not but feel how widely 
they had departed from the Divine model of true pastors 
of Christ’s people, and suspect that (as a contemporary 
writer expresses it) ‘they were not of that race of bishops ~ 
which Christ meant to have succeeded Him in His 
Church, but rather of the fellowship of Caiaphas and 
Annas.’? 

West was much too sagacious to acknowledge his own 
guilt by abusing the preacher: on the contrary, he treated 
him with great, and even exaggerated courtesy. When 
service was over he sent for Latimer, and thanked him for 
his excellent sermon. He had never heard his office so 
admirably expounded before; ‘indeed,’ he added, ‘if you 
will do one thing at my request, I will kneel down and 
kiss your feet for the good admonition that I have received 
of your sermon.’ 

‘What is your lordship’s pleasure that I should do for 
you?’ quoth Mr. Latimer. 

‘Marry!’ quoth the Bishop ; ‘ that you will preach me, 
in this place, one sermon against Martin Luther and his 
doctrine.’ 

It was an ingenious ruse on the part of the Bishop, but 
Latimer was more than a match for him. ‘ My lord, he 
replied, ‘I am not acquainted with the doctrine of Luther, 
nor are we permitted here to read his works’ [Wolsey had 
prohibited them in 1521], ‘and therefore it were but a 
vain thing for me to refute his doctrine, not understanding 
what he hath written, nor what opinion he holdeth. Sure 


* Ralph Morice, Cranmer’s Secretary, from whom the narrative is 
borrowed.—Latimer’s Remains, p. xxviii. 


Latimer Attacked 57 


I am that I have preached before you this day no man’s 
doctrine, but only the doctrine of God out of the Scrip- 
tures. And if Luther do none otherwise than I have done, 
there needeth no confutation of his doctrine. Otherwise, 
when I understand that he doth teach against the Scrip- 
ture, I will be ready with all my heart to confound his 
doctrine as much as lieth in me,’ 

The cautious shrewdness of this reply was too much for 
West’s temper ; and he broke off the conversation abruptly 
with the petulant remark, ‘ Well, well, Mr. Latimer, I 
perceive that you somewhat smell of the pan: you will 
repent this gear one day.’ 

West lost no time in showing his animosity. He 
preached publicly against Latimer and his doctrines in 
Barnwell Abbey, near Cambridge ; and formally inhibited 
him from-officiating in any part of his diocese or in any of 
the University pulpits. Such a step taken a few months 
earlier might have interposed a serious obstacle to the 
progress of the Reformation in Cambridge ; but, as it was, 
the inhibition altogether failed in its effect. Barnes, 
already more than half gained over to the cause of Latimer 
and Bilney, and constitutionally predisposed to adopt any 
procedure that might bring him into conflict with a bishop, 
at once openly declared himself on the side of the 
Reformers. His monastery, like many other religious 
houses, was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction ; and this 
gross abuse, which had been encouraged by the Popes, 
was now found serviceable to the cause of the Reforma- 
tion. Undeterred by West’s prohibition, therefore, Barnes 
boldly placed his pulpit at Latimer’s disposal for the next 
Sunday. 

It was Christmas Eve, and the churches would, in the 
ordinary course of things, be well filled with worshippers. 
But on this occasion the whole University was in a 
ferment, for it was felt that a crisis was at hand, and all 
were anxious to hear what Latimer had to say for himself. 


58 Latimer’s Conversion bs 
The little chapel of the Augustinian monastery was 
accordingly crowded with an overflowing audience. 
What theme Latimer chose, or how he treated it, we do 
not know ; his sermon, we may be sure, would be an 
honest and a temperate one: but while he was preaching, 
something was occurring elsewhere in Cambridge, which, 
for the time, diverted public interest to another person. 
At the request of the parish, Barnes was also preaching 
in St. Edward’s Church the same day. It was his first 
appearance as a Reformer, and his sermon at. once 
produced an explosion in the highly charged atmosphere. 
His text, chosen from the Epistle for the day (‘ Rejoice 
in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your 
moderation be known unto all men’), might have sug- 
gested the propriety of some caution and moderation. 
But Barnes was excited by the occurrences of the past 
few days ; he saw among his audience some of the most 
bitter opponents of the new doctrines, and some personal 
enemies ; and the provocation proved too strong for his 
impetuous temper. Diverging from his subject, he made 
some caustic remarks intended to ‘prick’ the enemies 
whom he saw present ;* and then launched out into a 
furious attack of the whole body of the clergy, and 
especially of the Bishops. The Bishops, he declared, 
were followers of Judas, who had the purse, and not of - 
Christ ; they were like Balaam, they rode upon asses—the 
ignorant people, namely, whom they pillaged and abused. 
In the horns of their mitres he recognised the horns of 
the false prophet ; and their pastoral staff seemed to him 
expressly designed to knock the sheep on the head. 
Wolsey in particular, who surely deserved some con- 
sideration at the hands of a Cambridge Reformer, was 
singled out for special denunciation. His many offices, 
is large dioceses, his state and pomp, his magnificent 


t The narrative is founded on Barnes’s Supplication to Henry VIII. 
London, 1534. 


Barnes Accused 59 


apparel, his pillars, his cushions,t his two crosses, his 
golden shoes, his red gloves—‘ bloody gloves to keep him 
warm amidst his ceremonies ’—were all held up to the 
scorn and reprobation of the audience. 

A sermon so violent and so personal at once provoked 
a crisis. Ridley, one of the Fellows of King’s College, 
and the enemy at whom Barnes had hurled some of his 
most offensive remarks, joined with Watson (Latimer’s 
old tutor) and some others in presenting an accusation 
against Barnes before the Vice-Chancellor. Twenty-five 
articles selected from his sermon, and characterised as 
“some contentious, some seditious, some slanderous, some 
heretical,’ were laid to his charge; and he was required 
to recant or abide the consequences. Barnes. affirmed 
that he had been misunderstood, and offered to explain 
his meaning next Sunday in the same piace ; but the Vice- 
Chancellor inhibited his preaching there. 

Bilney and Latimer were no doubt grieved and per- 
plexed by the rashness and indiscretion of their new 
ally ; still they made common cause with him, and their 
adherents, a numerous body, resolved to procore for him 
an open and fair trial The whole University was 
agitated with the discussion, and was divided into 
factions. The friends of Barnes had their headquarters 
at a house called the ‘White Horse,’ conveniently 
situated so as to allow the members of King’s, Queen’s, 
and St. John’s Colleges to enter unobserved, and 
facetiously styled ‘Germany,’ by their opponents. It 
seems to have been the chief object of Barnes’s accusers 
to terrify him by threats into submission and recantation, 
without the formality of a public trial; and his friends 
were equally resolved to have all proceedings public. 
Scenes of confusion and almost riot followed, for men’s 
minds were becoming excited. 


* In Singer’s edition of Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, there is a curious 
engraving of one of Wolsey’s progresses, in which these emblems, 
denounced by Barnes, are all introduced. 


60 Latimer’s Conversion 


After a month had been spent in this unsatisfactory 
manner, Barnes threw himself upon the charity of the 
Vice-Chancellor, and agreed to read a public recantation 
in the church where he had preached the offending 
sermon. But the terms of the proposed recantation were 
so extravagant, and involved such an unfair perversion of 
his language, that he refused to read it, and ‘hereupon,’ 
says he, ‘there arose a great tragedy amongst them.’ 
Alarming rumours besides began to circulate ; report had 
just reached England * that some daring Englishman had 
translated the New Testament into the English language, 
and was about to circulate this dangerous book in every 
part of the realm; and it was believed that not only 
Cambridge but all England was filled with ‘pestilent 
books of, Luther’s perverse opinions.’ It was resolved, 
therefore, to strike a, blow that should effectually arrest 
the progress of the Reformation in England. Communi- 
cation was opened up with Wolsey, who naturally enough 
resented, Barnes’s, unwarrantable attack, and a secret plan 
was devised for arresting Barnes, and at the same time 
seizing the prohibited books which were suspected to 
have been introduced into Cambridge. 

One part of the plan was accomplished with complete 
success. Barnes was openly arrested in the Convocation 
House, and hurried off to London.? The other part as 
completely miscarried. Dr. Farman, of Queen’s College, 
heard the whispered plot, and immediately warned the 
suspected persons of the contemplated razzia upon their 
books. There was not a moment to lose; the books 
were conveyed to a place of safety; and when the 
sergeant-at-arms, who had arrested Barnes, proceeded 
in triumph to the very spot where the forbidden books 
were commonly kept—‘God be praised, the books were 
not to be found.’ 


 Ellis’s Letters, third series, vol. ii. p. 71. 
2 Foxe, vol. v. p. 416. 


Barnes on Trial 61 


It was on Monday, February 5 (1526), that Barnes was 
arrested, and on the Wednesday following, after waiting 
all day, he was brought before Wolsey in his gallery at 
Westminster. Gardiner, Wolsey’s Secretary, and for- 
merly Barnes’s tutor at Cambridge, and Fox, also a 
Cambridge man, were the only persons present at the 
interview. The Cardinal read over the articles of 
accusation, and Barnes argued with considerable force 
in his own defence. Wolsey, of course, referred to the 
violent personal attack made upon himself, and criticised 
Barnes with some humour and severity. ‘Had you not 
a sufficient scope in the Scriptures, Master Doctor, he 
asked, ‘to teach the people, but that my golden shoes, my 
pole-axes, my pillars, my golden cushions, my crosses did 
so sore offend you that you must make us “ ridiculum 
caput” amongst the people? We were jollily that day 
laughed to scorn. Verily it was a sermon more fit to be 
preached on a stage than ona pulpit.’ Barnes was urged 
to acknowledge his heresy, and submit to Wolsey, but he 
resolutely declined to submit, except in such matters as 
could be proved against him. 

Next morning, after a sleepless night spent in writing 
his defence, Barnes was conducted to the Chapter House 
at Westminster Abbey, where a number of bishops and 
doctors were assembled for the trial of heretics. Again, 
with many threats, he was required to confess his heresy, 
and submit to the authorities; and again he declined. 
He was committed to the Fleet, and all intercourse with 
him was rigorously forbidden ; Coverdale and others who 
had accompanied him from Cambridge were not allowed 
to see him ; and a determined effort was made to work 
upon his fears. He was again examined, with the same 
result, on Friday. On Saturday, after being kept some 
hours in waiting, a long roll was put in his hand, and he 
was peremptorily required to read it as it stood, without 
any comment, or to ‘stand in jeopardy.’ Still Barnes 


62 Latimer’s Conversion 


demurred, and entreated his judges to show him his 
errors; to prove that his doctrines were heretical; at 
least to let him first of all see what he had to read. He 
went down on his knees, but his judges remained in- 
exorable. 

‘Either read the roll or be burned,’ said the Bishop of 
Bath, the president of the court. 

‘IT will not read,’ was Barnes’s emphatic reply. 

The other judges present remonstrated with him: ‘It 
is but a small thing to read the roll,’ they urged, ‘and 
you will be never the worse for it; the Cardinal is con- 
siderate and merciful; submit to him, and trust to his 
generosity.’ 

This seeming sympathy with him effected what the 
threatened severity had failed to accomplish ; Barnes took 
the roll, ‘read it, subscribed it, made a cross on it,’ swore 
to submit to any penance which might be inflicted upon 
him, and was reconducted to his prison. He was not 
alone in his humiliation: four Still-yard men, German 
merchants,? had been brought to trial for introducing 
along with other merchandise some of Luther’s prohibited 
books ; and like Barnes, they had acknowledged their fault, 
and promised to submit to any penance that might be 
enjoined upon them. All were committed to the Fleet, 
preparatory to the grand scenic display that had been 
designed for the next morning. 

On Sunday, therefore, as soon as it was daylight, Barnes 
and his companions, bearing faggots, marched through 
the crowded streets to St. Paul’s ; the warder of the Fleet 
heading the procession with his bill-men, and the night- 
marshal with his tip-staves bringing up the rear. Old 
St. Paul’s was already thronged with a somewhat noisy 
assemblage, eager to witness the spectacle. The proceed- 
ings have been described by Foxe, with unusual spirit, 
and we cannot do better than transcribe his narrative. 

® First Series of Chapter House Papers, State Paper Office. 


Barnes Submits 63 


‘The Cardinal had a scaffold made on the top of the 
stairs for himself, with six-and-thirty abbots, mitred priors, 
and bishops; and he in his whole pomp, mitred (which 
Barnes spake against), sat there enthronised, his chaplains 
and spiritual doctors in gowns of damask and satin, and 
he himself in purple—even like a bloody Antichrist. And 
there was a new pulpit erected on the top of the stairs 
also for the Bishop of Rochester’ [Fisher] ‘to preach 
against Luther and Dr. Barnes: and great baskets full of 
books’ [prohibited books that had been seized] ‘ stand- 
ing before them, within the rails, which were commanded, 
after the great fire was made before the rood of Northern’ 
[the crucifix over the north door] ‘there to be burned. 
Now while the sermon was a-doing [doing is literally 
correct, for, as Fisher himself confesses, ‘it could not be 
heard for the noise,’ and was therefore all dumb show, | 
‘Dr. Barnes and the Still-yard men were commanded to 
kneel down, and ask forgiveness of God, of the Catholic 
Church, and of the Cardinal’s grace; and after that he 
was commanded, at the end of the sermon, to declare that 
he was more charitably handled than he deserved, or was 
worthy—his heresies were so horrible and detestable. And 
once again he kneeled down on his knees, desiring of the 
people forgiveness and to pray for him. And so the 
Cardinal departed under a canopy, with all his mitred 
men with him. Then these poor men were commanded 
to come down from their stage, and the night-marshal 
and the warden of the Fleet were commanded to carry 
them about the fire. And so were they brought to the 
bishops, and there, for absolution, kneeled down; where 
Rochester stood up, and declared unto the people how 
many days of pardon and forgiveness of sins they had for 
being at that sermon, and there did he assoil Dr. Barnes 
with the others, and showed the people that they were 
received into the Church again.’ 

* Fowe, vol. v. p. 418, &c. 


64 Latimer’s Conversion 


Such was the inglorious termination of Barnes’s first 
appearance as a Reformer. A single sermon, marked 
much more by fierce personality than by simple honest 
zeal for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ, had involved 
the whole University for weeks in angry controversy; and 
this was the unhappy end—an ignominious denial of the 
truth before half the population of London. The scene 
at St. Paul’s over, Barnes was again committed to prison 
during Wolsey’s pleasure, and for some time he will dis- 
appear from this biography ; we shall, however, only too 
frequently have occasion to regret the evil influence which 
the unhappy example of his recantation seems to have 
exerted over the English Reformers. It was a bad prece- 
dent, and, unfortunately, it was too often followed. 

The position of Latimer and Bilney must of course have 
been seriously compromised by the conduct of Barnes. 
They had not, indeed, given offence as he had done by 
personal attacks upon the rulers of the Church; still, as 
the teachers of doctrines that were more than suspected 
of Lutheranism, they had many enemies, and the present 
seemed a favourable opportunity for utterly extirpating all 
heresy from the University. Accusations were accordingly 
presented against them, and they weresummoned to London 
to answer for themselves before Wolsey ; not very long, 
probably, after Barnes’s appearance at St. Paul’s.* They 
had given no personal provocation to Wolsey ; the articles 
against them would seem slight and trivial after those 
which had been alleged against Barnes ; the Cardinal was 
by no means of a sanguinary temperament, and was in high 


t There are no means of fixing the exact date. Foxe, always confused 
in his chronology, is hopelessly incorrect in his sketch of Latimer’s 
early life. Townsend, on the faith of an obscure letter of Sir Richard 
Morison’s, fixes 1528 as the date ; but Bilney (who was with Latimer) 
was apprehended in June 1527, and admitted on his trial that he had 
previously appeared before Wolsey. Besides it is absurd to suppose 
that Latimer would be left unnoticed for nearly three years. Moreover, 
was he silent all that time ? for except on the theory in the text, he was 
prohibited to preach. 


Latimer Before Wolsey 65 


spirits from the success of his foreign policy, which at last 
seemed to promise him his long-desired revenge upon the 
perfidious Charles. The moment was an auspicious one, 
therefore, and the interview was unexpectedly productive 
of the best results for Latimer. We must again draw 
upon Ralph Morice, Cranmer’s Secretary, for a graphic 
narrative of the proceedings. 

‘Latimer was called before Wolsey into his inner 
chamber by the sound of a little bell, which the Cardinal 
used to ring when any person should come or approach 
unto him. When Mr. Latimer was before him, he well 
advised him, and said, 

‘“Ts your name Latimer ?” 

*“ Yea, forsooth,” quoth Latimer. 

‘“ You seem,” quoth the Cardinal, “ that you are of good 
years, nor no babe,? but one that should wisely and soberly 
use yourself in all your doings ; and yet it is reported to me 
of you that you are much infected with this new fantastical 
doctrine of Luther, and such-like heretics: that you do 
very much harm among the youth, and other light-heads, 
with your doctrine.” 

‘Said Mr. Latimer again, ‘‘ Your grace is misinformed ; 
for I ought to have some more knowledge than to be so 
simply reported of, by reason that I have studied in my 
time both (of) the ancient doctors of the Church, and also 
(of) the school-doctors.”’ 

‘“ Marry, that is well said,” quoth the Cardinal. ‘ Mr. 
Doctor Capon, and you, Mr. Doctor Marshall? (both being 
there present), say you somwhat to Mr. Latimer touching 
some question in Duns.” 

‘Whereupon Dr. Capon propounded a question to Mr. 
Latimer. Mr. Latimer, being fresh then of memory, and 
not discontinued from study as those two doctors had 


* Latimer was forty-one, according to the present biographer ; 
thirty-five, according to other authorities. 
? Wolsey’s chaplains. Capon was present at Barnes’s arrest, 


5 ’ 


66 Latimer’s Conversion 


been, answered very roundly : somewhat helping them to 
cite their own allegations rightly, where they had not 
truly or perfectly alleged them. 

‘The Cardinal, perceiving the ripe and ready answering 
of Latimer, said, ‘What mean you, my masters, to bring 
such a man before me into accusation? I had thought 
that he had been some light-headed fellow that never 
studied such kind of doctrine as the school-doctors are. 
I pray thee, Latimer, tell me the cause why the Bishop 
of Ely and other doth mislike thy preachings: tell me the 
truth, and I will bear with thee upon amendment.” 

‘Quoth Latimer, ‘ Your grace must understand that the 
Bishop of Ely cannot favour me, for that not long ago I 
preached before him in Cambridge a sermon from this 
text, ‘Christus existens pontifex, etc. (Heb. ix. 11), wherein 
I described the office of a bishop so uprightly as I might, 
according to the text, that never after he could abide me, 
but hath not only forbidden me to preach in his diocese, 
but also hath found the means to inhibit me from 
preaching in the University.” 

‘“T pray you tell me,’ quoth the Cardinal, “what thou 
didst preach before him on that text.” 

‘Mr. Latimer plainly and simply (committing his cause 
unto Almighty God, who is director of princes’ hearts) 
declared unto the Cardinal the whole effect of his sermon 
preached before the Bishop of Ely. The Cardinal, 
nothing at all misliking the doctrine of the Word of God 
that Latimer had preached, said unto him, “ Did you not 
preach any other dectrine than you have rehearsed ?” 

‘“ No, surely,” said Latimer. 

‘And examining thoroughly with the doctors what else 
could be objected against him, the Cardinal said unto Mr. 
Latimer, “If the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine 
as you have here repeated, you shall have my licence, and 
shall preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will.” 

‘And thereupon, after a gentle monition given unto 


Licensed by Wolsey 67 


Mr. Latimer, the Cardinal discharged him with his licence 
home to preach throughout England.’ 

Foxe, who is unusually inaccurate in his notice) of 
Latimer’s early life, speaks of him as having signed certain 
articles on this occasion ;? and Lingard, in his meagre and 
unfair sketch, of course repeats the misstatement. But 
there were no articles subscribed at all, as is sufficiently 
evident from the fact that Latimer, when subsequently 
on his trial before Stokesley and Warham, was never 
accused of having ‘relapsed.’ 

Latimer immediately returned to Cambridge, and the 
next holiday afterwards re-appeared in the pulpit, and read 
aloud that licence of the Cardinal, which, while Wolsey’s 
power lasted, effectually protected him from all episcopal 
interference. Thus wonderfully, to the great gratification 
of the friends of the Reformation, and the confusion of its 
enemies, did Wolsey, the head of the Church in England, 
intervene for the second time to protect the progress of the 
Reformers in the University. 

Several of Latimer’s fellow-labourers had also been sum- 
moned before Wolsey, and all experienced the same un- 
expectedly mild treatment. The Cardinal had sufficiently 
vindicated himself by the punishment and humiliation of 
Barnes ; and was not inclined, either by disposition or by 
policy, to show any great severity towards men who had 
given him no personal provocation. Latimer, as we have 
seen, returned to Cambridge, with an admonition to be 
cautious, but otherwise perfectly free and untrammelled. 
Bilney, however, did not escape quite so easily. No 
punishment was inflicted; no public recantation was 
exacted ; but he was induced to promise on oath ‘not to 
preach any of Luther’s opinions, but to impugn them every- 
where.’ Bilney was timid ; Barnes’s unhappy precedent 
was fresh in his recollection ; and, in an evil hour, he took 


* Latimer’s Rematis, p. XXx. 
2 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 454. 


68 Latimer’s Conversion 


an oath which he could not keep without doing violence 
to all his convictions. It was a lamentable step in a man 
of Bilney’s integrity ; but it was some time before the 
English Reformers learned to ‘resist even unto death, 
striving against the prevalence of evil.’ 

Of Bilney’s trial in 1527, Sir Thomas More says (Dialogue, 
fol. 213) : 

‘This man had also been before that accused unto the 
greatest prelate in this realm, who, for his tender favour 
borne unto the University, did not proceed far in the matter 
against him ; but accepting his denial with a corporal oath 
that he should from that time forth be no setter forth of heresies, 
but in his preachings and readings impugn them: and dis- 
missed him very benignly, and of his liberal bounty gave 
him also money for his costs.’ 


CHAPTER III 


FROM LATIMER’S APPEARANCE BEFORE WOLSEY, TO HIS 
APPOINTMENT AS RECTOR OF WEST KINGTON 


(1526-1531) 


HE controversy which Barnes’s sermon had excited 
could not be without its important influence on 
Latimer’s theological teaching. It would serve somewhat 
the same purpose that the controversy about indulgences 
did, in widening the scope of Luther’s preaching. Those 
abuses which Latimer had gently censured, and which 
Barnes had so loudly denounced, were not mere accidental 
excrescences of the Romish ecclesiastical system, which 
the voice of a few preachers might abolish. They were 
the natural result, the visible embodiment of erroneous 
principles of belief which had long been admitted as 
unquestionable ; they were intimately associated with the 
influence of the clergy, and were the great sources of 
their enormous wealth ; they were fostered by the gross 
ignorance in which the people were kept, shut out from all 
opportunities of learning the truth which God himself had 


' revealed ; and they were defended by the authority of an 


infallible Church. 

In spite, therefore, of his eminently practical and con- 
servative tendencies, Latimer was compelled to enlarge the 
scope of his teaching, to protest against the sin of with- 


holding the Word of God from the people, and in self- 
69 


40 From 1526 to 1531 


defence to assert those great rights of free inquiry and 
private judgment which had so long remained in abeyance. 
It was an important step in advance, and it was fortunate 
that Wolsey’s protection secured him from all official 
interference, so long as he kept within those bounds of 
prudence and moderation which a man of Latimer’s 
temperament was not likely rashly to transgress. 

Thomas Becon (one of Cranmer’s chaplains), who was 
a student at Cambridge during those years, has preserved 
for us his recollections of Latimer’s sermons at this period 
of his history :— 

‘I was present when with manifest authorities of God’s 
Word, and arguments invincible, besides the allegations of 
doctors, he proved in his sermons that the Holy Scriptures 
ought to be read in the English tongue of all Christian 
people, whether they were priests or laymen, as they were 
called, which things divers drowsy dunces, with certain 
false-flying flattering friars, could not abide. . . . Neither 
was I absent when he inveighed against temple works, 
good intents, blind zeal, superstitious devotion, as the 
painting of tabernacles, gilding of images, setting up 
of candles, running on pilgrimage, and such other idle 
inventions of men, whereby the glory of God was obscured, 
and the works of mercy the less regarded. I remember, 
also, how he was wont to rebuke the beneficed men with 
the authority of God’s Word, for neglecting and not 
teaching their flock, and for being absent from their 
cures, 

‘Oh! how vehement was he in rebuking all sins, 
namely, idolatry, false and idle swearing, covetousness, 
and whoredom; again, how sweet and pleasant were 
his words in exhorting unto virtue! He spake nothing 
but it left as it were certain pricks or stings in the hearts 
of the hearers, which moved them to consent to his 
doctrine. I leave off to report his free speech against 
buying and selling of benefices, against the promoting 


A Power at Cambridge 71 


of them unto the livings of spiritual ministers, which 
are unlearned and ignorant in the law of God, against 
popish pardons, against the reposing our hope in our 
own works, or in other men’s merits. Neither do I 
here rehearse how beneficial he was, according to his 
possibility, to poor scholars and other needy people ; so 
conformable was his life to his doctrine. There is a 
common saying, which remaineth unto this day ;: “ When 
Master Stafford read, and Master Latimer preached, then 
was Cambridge blessed. ge 

Three years of such teaching as this could not fail to 
be of great importance in creating among the clergy and 
learned youth of England an earnest desire for the Refor- 
mation of the Church. To Latimer himself this period 
of tranquil activity was of essential service. It matured 
his religious opinions ; it deepened his conviction of the 
absolute necessity of some better and purer teaching for 
the ignorant and superstitious people; and it was an 
admirable preparation for his future career as the great 
popular preacher of his time. He had now found his 
true function in life, not that of a friar seeking peace 
in the austere discipline or the unprofitable meditation 
of his cell; but that of a diligent preacher swaying the 
minds of his hearers with words of earnest and impressive 
eloquence, exposing error, and superstition, and cor- 
ruption, with a happy force of effective raillery that 
was unanswerable. Already he was recognised as a 
great power in the University, one of those preachers 
who possess the rare faculty of speaking to the hearts 
of their audience, and who never fail to leave their 
impress on their age. ‘I have an ear for other 
preachers,’ Sir John Cheke used to say, ‘but I have 
a heart for Latimer.’ 

Though protected by Wolsey’s licence from violent 
interference, Latimer had of course to pass through the 


* Becon’s The Fewel of Foy, p. 425 (Parker Society Edition). 


72 From 1526 to 1531 


customary ordeal of ridicule and controversy. Long- 
established abuses never want defenders; and Latimer, 
who had ventured to condemn practices that had been 
sanctioned by the custom of centuries, and the opinions 
of hundreds of school-doctors, was accused of arrogance 
and insufferable conceit in thus venturing to set up his 
individual judgment against the tacit consent of the whole 
Catholic Church. The authority of the Church—the usual 
argument which has always been alleged in defence of 
every abuse in morals and in doctrine, the customary 
bugbear for intimidating weak minds—was of course 
paraded before Latimer. ‘Consider that you are but 
a man,’ said Doctor Redman, who lived to see the folly 
of his own arguments; ‘lay down your stomach, and 
humble your spirit, and suffer not the Church to take 
offence with the hardness of your heart, nor that her 
unity and Christ’s coat without seam (as much as lieth 
in you) should be torn asunder. Consider the saying 
of the wise man, and be obedient. thereunto—“ Be not 
wise in your own conceit.”’ It was in the same spirit 
Luther had been attacked ; it was in the same spirit the 
Founder of the Church Himself had been arraigned for 
not observing ‘the traditions of the elders.’ And all alike 
answered by appealing to a greater authority than the 
Church. ‘It is enough for me,’ was Latimer’s reply, 
‘that Christ’s sheep hear no man’s voice but Christ’s ; 
and as for you, you have no voice of Christ against me, 
whereas, for my part, I have a heart that is ready to 
hearken to any voice of Christ that you can bring me; 
so fare you well, and trouble me no more from the talking 
with the Lord my God.’ 

But it is time that we should take a brief glance at the 
progress of the Reformation outside the University of 


t Foxe, vol. vii. p, 154. Foxe has preserved only the substance of 
the correspondence. Nothing more was needed ; we have it already 
in the Gospels, and in the life of every Reformer. 


Cause of the Reformation 73 


Cambridge. The Reformation in England, indeed, may 
be said to have resulted from the operation of three causes. _ 
One of these, which may not unjustly be styled political, 
we shall soon have occasion, in the course of this 
biography, to consider. A second element, the offspring 
in some measure of the revival of learning, was con-”’ 
tributed by the Universities. The third, at which we 


are now to glance, sprang from the common people. © - 


The two former causes, operating through the Court, 
the nobility, and the more learned of the clergy, were 
in their nature conservative and moderate, and averse 
from unnecessary change or violence; and it was their 
predominance which determined the peculiar character 
of the English Reformation. The Government of Henry 
was too strong for the voice of the people to be much 
consulted in such a matter ; hence the Reformation in this 
country was a sort of compromise between the religious 
wants and the political necessities of the time; that 
feature of sweeping change was wanting, which the 
predominant influence of the people supplied in other 
countries. 

The panegyrists of Henry are accustomed to boast that 
his steady hand steered the ship of the English State 
through a perilous navigation, in which other Govern- 
ments were miserably shipwrecked. The boast is well 
founded; yet there were many perplexing questions 
connected with a Reformation of religion which were 
not so much settled in Henry’s reign as postponed.. The 
wishes of the popular party of Reformers were scarcely 
ever consulted ; and they were in consequence dissatisfied 
with the nature and extent of the Reformation, They 
may have been rash and violent in many of their pro- 
posals ; but the true remedy for these faults was not to 
threaten with the prison and the stake, but to temper them 
with the caution and moderation of the other Reformers. 
Such a policy of conciliation was foreign to Henry’s 


74 From 1526 to 1531 7 ‘ 


temper ; a scheme of ecclesiastical reform was adopted 
which did not give complete satisfaction to a considerable 
number of the common people; the Church was from the 
very first weakened by internal dissensions; there grew 
up within its pale a numerous and rapidly increasing body 
who demanded a more thorough Reformation ; in progress 
of time the whole nation was convulsed with the fierce 
struggle, and the religious controversy brought on a bloody 
civil war. The Church of England, indeed, down to the 
present day, has been affected by the legislation of Henry : 
and, alone, of all Reformed Churches, it has never been 
the Church of the entire reformed nation. 

The popular movement towards a Reformation in 
England may be ascribed to the labours of Wickliffe. 
Copies of that Reformer’s works, and especially of his 
translation of the New Testament, were widely circulated 
and were greedily read in secret by assemblages of pious 
worshippers. It was chiefly in London and the villages 
of the Eastern counties that these simple students of 
Scripture were to be found. Longland, Bishop of 
Lincoln, had upwards of two hundred of them, men 
and women, chiefly mechanics and farm labourers, 
brought before him as heretics in a single visitation 
of his diocese. They were charged with reading 
heretical books, teaching the Creed and the Lord’s 
Prayer in English, disregarding the ceremonies of the 
Church, eating before partaking of the sacrament, not 
going to church on saints’ days, and speaking with dis- 
respect of the morals and learning of the clergy. Long- 
land’s Register* affords us an interesting glimpse of a 
widely-ramified association of Christian brethren, known 
to each other by a species of spiritual freemasonry, 
meeting by night to hear precious words of instruction 
from Wickliffe’s gospels, or sometimes in the fields, 
amongst the cattle, reading to one another from tat- 

* Largely extracted from in Fowe, vol. iv. pp. 221-251. 


Wrycliffe’s Work 95 


tered manuscripts, fondly preserved till they were almost 
worn with age. They had no advantage of any revival 
of letters, or any study of the school-doctors, to guide 
them in their opinions; but in their own plain sensible 
way they compared the religion that existed around them 
with the teaching and practice of Christ and His apostles, 
and with the help of their rude bucolic logic they drew 
conclusions that would not have disgraced the most 
accomplished disciple of Aristotle. 

Thus free and unshackled by any regard for ecclesias- 
tical traditions or scholastic propositions, they had arrived 
at convictions which would have startled Bilney or 
Latimer, almost as much as Bishop Longland. They 
refused to worship the crucifix ; they derided pilgrimages 
as absurd and superstitious; they considered the Pope 
‘the common scandal of the world’; they even argued 
against the carnal presence of Christ in the sacrament. 
‘Put a mouse in the Pyx,’ said they, with somewhat 
irreverent though unanswerable logic, ‘and then we 
-shall see plainly whether or not the bread has been 
changed into the flesh and blood of the Creator of the 
World.’ . 

The progress of the Reformation abroad naturally com- 
municated a fresh impulse to the proceedings of these 
Christian brethren. London, their headquarters, was the 
great centre of intercourse with the Continent ; and along 
with the other wares imported from the Low Countries, 
there were clandestinely introduced many of the chief 
writings of the German and Swiss Reformers. The 
reader has not forgotten the ‘great baskets full of books 
of Lutheranism and Lollardry’ which were burnt at 
Barnes’s recantation; these, in the ordinary course of 
things, would have been distributed over the country 
by the Christian brethren, amongst whom were several 


t Some priests in Essex, it seems, tried the experiment, on which 
Longland ordered one of them to be burnt. 


76 From 1526 to 1531 


enterprising agents, sufficiently skilled in German and 
Latin to interpret the works to their humbler associates. 
In the same year, 1526, copies of Tindale’s New Testament 
began to find their way into England, notwithstanding all 
the precautions of the authorities ; and the circulation of 
this all-important work became henceforward the main 
object of the Christian colporteurs, as it was also the 
chief instrument in promoting the Reformation among 
the common people of England. 

All efforts on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities to 
suppress the book and undermine its influence were vain. 
They attempted to seize the printer ; they tried to intercept 
the copies on their passage from Germany through the 
Low Countries; they denounced it as a corrupt and 
inaccurate translation, with thousands of errors; they 
condemned it as the work of ‘children of iniquity, 
blinded through extreme wickedness, who had attempted 
by wicked interpretations to profane the majesty of Holy 
Scripture, and to abuse the most holy Word of God.’* 
Still, in spite of all this, Tyndale’s New Testament was 
imported in great numbers, and was widely circulated, 
and eagerly read. Completely baffled by the mysterious 
agency at work in distributing the books, the Bishops had 
recourse to the commonplace expedient of purchasing all 
the copies they could find, and publicly burning them for 
the edification of the faithful. It need hardly be added 
that this ignominious plan completely failed ; the laws of 
political economy would not yield to episcopal manifestoes, 
and this extraordinary demand produced an unprecedented 
supply, which speedily flooded the English market with 
New Testaments. 

Early in 1528,? Tunstal, Bishop of London, at length 

= Tunstal’s Proclamation ; Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 706. 

2 It seems probable that it was at the examination of Bilney, in 1527 
(December), that the Bishops found the clue which they had so long 


sought in vain. Doctor Ferman, of Honey Lane, was examined as a 
witness for Bilney, and his examination disclosed what had been done 


Oxford Infected Vis | 


succeeded in discovering the mysterious agency which had 
so long escaped detection, and the Bishops were startled 
at the revelations of the extent to which this dreaded 
leaven of heresy had infected the South of England. 
London seemed to swarm with concealed Reformers ; the 
villages of Essex were almost peopled by them ; trades- 
men, yeomen, merchants, even priests, were implicated as 
active in the dissemination of Lutheran doctrines. A loud 
note of alarm was sounded that the Church was in danger, 
and from this period dates the commencement of that 
rigorous inquisition for heretics, and that stern punish- 
ment of all who refused to recant, which form such con- 
spicuous and unpleasant characteristics of the early history 
of the Reformation. 

To aggravate the consternation of the Bishops, the 
University of Oxford, which, they had fondly flattered 
themselves, enjoyed a perfect immunity from all cor- 
ruption of Lutheran opinions, was suddenly discovered 
to be a very hotbed of heresy. The Cambridge students, 
selected by Wolsey, and transferred to his College at 
Oxford, had, unknown to him, all been under the influence 
of Bilney’s teaching ; and in their new sphere they secretly 
disseminated around them the principles which Latimer 
was openly enforcing at Cambridge. They met in each 
other’s rooms to read and expound the Epistles of St. 
Paul ; and they were regularly supplied with the works 
of the Continental Reformers. 

For upwards of two years, through the prudence and 
caution of Clarke, their proceedings escaped suspicion ; 
but in the spring of 1528, either through treachery, or 
through the indiscreet magnitude of the importation of 
prohibited books, the secret became known to Wolsey, 
by Garret, his curate, at Oxford. Oxford was immediately searched, 
the Reformers told on each other, and the whole systematic manage- 
ment for importing and circulating prohibited books was at once 


disclosed. 
* See Strype’s Ecc, Mert., I. i. p. 113, etc. ; ii. p. 50, etc, 


78 From 1526 to 1531 


and summary measures were at once adopted to free the 
University from this foul blot on its reputed orthodoxy. 
A whole library of heretical books, it was discovered, had 
been industriously circulated almost under the eyes of the 
unsuspecting Heads of Houses, including, in addition to 
Tyndale’s New Testament, treatises by Huss, Wickliffe, 
Luther, Lambert, Zwingle, Melancthon, and Ecolampadius. 
The infection was not confined to a few rash under- 
graduates ; but, as the Warden of New College patheti- 
cally lamented,* those implicated were numerous, and 
among the ‘most towardly young men in the University,’ 
The authorities were almost as much ashamed as alarmed ; 
and Wolsey was excessively chagrined at this outbreak of 
heresy in that magnificent foundation which was the pride 
of his life,and among the very students for whose presence 
he wasresponsible. The ringleaders were, therefore, seized 
and imprisoned ; some escaped, and fled to the Continent ; 
Clarke died from the effects of his confinement in an un- 
healthy prison; the others recanted, and, like Barnes, 
were exhibited in ignominious parade in the High Street 
of Oxford, and were then formally absolved, and received 
again into communion with the Church. 

This weakness of the Reformers in the hour of trial 
forms a noticeable and by no means an admirable feature 
in the early history of the Reformation in England. 
Hitherto no one had faced danger without flinching ; and 
those who were generally recognised as the leaders of the 
movement, and who should have shown to their followers 
an example of courage and intrepidity, had abandoned 
their cause when death seemed to menace them, and had 
sought safety in a cowardly recantation. The Bishops’ 
Registers of this period are full of abjurations, couched in 


t Letter to the Bishop of Lincoln, State Paper Office. The whole 
occurrence can fortunately be read in the letters of contemporaries. 
See Froude, vol. ii. ; Foxe, vol. v. p. 421 ; and Appendix to Townsend’s 
Foxe. 


Bilney's: Grasade 79 


terms of servile timidity, which it is pitiful to read ;* and 
had the cause been an ordinary human cause, and not the 
cause of God and of truth, its success might well have 
been despaired of. Indeed, it may be doubted whether 
the comparatively clement policy of Wolsey and Tunstal, 
whose chief object was to induce the Reformers to recant, 
was not really more dangerous to the progress of the 
Reformation than the sanguinary cruelty of their suc- 
cessors, More and Stokesley. The stake and the rack 
sometimes evoked courage ; and at all events the faith 
that braved the fire threw a lustre upon the cause in 
which the martyr died ; but the ignominy and shame of 
public recantation brought a shade over the truths which 
were thus deserted as of less importance than life, and 
sadly perplexed the bewildered disciples who were 
abandoned by the guides whom they had followed. 

In the spring of 1527, Bilney left Latimer in Cambridge, 
and proceeded on a sort of missionary expedition to the 
East of England. He preached in various churches in 
London (for the Reformation had friends among the 
clergy of the metropolis) ; in Willesden, Chelsea, ard 
Kensington, then pleasant suburban villages ; in Ipsw?<h, 
and in various parts of his native diocese of Norwich. ? 
He condemned the worship of images, the adoration of 
the Virgin, and pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints; 
and proclaimed to his hearers the great doctrine of the 
mediation of Christ, which had been to him the peace and 
life of his soul. For these offences he was arrested, and 
after a short imprisonment was brought before Wolsey at 
Westminster (November, 1527). The Cardinal at once 
recognised him, and charged him with violating his oath 
of the previous year not to teach any Lutheran doctrines. 
Bilney urged in defence the wretched quibble that the oath 


* See especially Garret’s letter to Wolsey, in the Appendix to Town- 
send’s Foxe, vol. v. ; ; 
® Tunstal’s Register. 


80 From 1526 to 153i 


was not binding because it had not been administered 
‘judicially,” but in a private examination; and he was 
compelled again to swear that he would answer this time 
‘plainly and without craft’—a terrible insinuation against 
the uprightness of his character. He defended himself 
with great ability ; and, in the vain hope that he could 
influence Tunstal, he addressed to him some letters 
detailing his spiritual experience, with a simple pathos 
that might have melted a heart of stone.? 

But all was unavailing; Tunstal had discovered signs 
of weakness in Bilney, and resolved to work on his fears. 
Thrice he refused to recant; but at length he was over- 
persuaded by some friends, and abjured and submitted to 
the Church.?, On December 8, 1527, he stood where 
Barnes had stood before, bareheaded, and bearing a 
faggot, listening with feelings of shame and remorse 
while the preacher exulted in this fresh triumph of the 
Church over heresy. After this humiliating penance he 
was imprisoned for a year, and in the beginning of 1529 
he again rejoined Latimer at Cambridge. 

For some time after his return Bilney was inconsolable. 
He feared that he had committed the unpardonable sin. 
‘Nothing did him any good. His friends were with him 
day and night, and comforted him as well as they could, 
but no comforts would serve. And as for the comfortable 
places of Scripture, to bring them unto him, it was as 
though a man should run him through the heart with a 
sword, for he thought that the whole Scriptures were 
against him, and sounded to his condemnation.’3 By 
degrees, however, Latimer induced him to return to his 


t See them in Foxe, vol. iv. p. 632. 

2 See a most interesting account of Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue 
against Tindale. Bilney’s name is not mentioned, but he is the man 
everywhere alluded to: see fol. 213, etc. More charges him with 
duplicity, but admits that he was very resolute, and indeed said his 
abjuration was very imperfect. 

3 Latimer’s Sermons, p. 222; Remazins, p. 51. 


The ‘Sermons on the Card’ 81 


former duties, and with them his spiritual strength revived. 
Again the two fast friends were to be seen walking in 
close solemn converse along the ‘ Heretics’ Hill.’ Again 
they stood by the sick bed, and taught in the prison, com- 
forting the dying, and reclaiming the lost. Hope and 
confidence began again to brighten the disconsolate heart 
of Bilney; and, as in the case of the fallen Hebrew 
champion when his hair began to grow in the prison- 
house of Gaza, there sprang up in his soul a deep-rooted 
resolution to wipe away the memory of his former weak- 
ness, and, with God’s help, to show that he was not 
ashamed of the great truths which he had so long 
preached. 

Bilney was especially interested in one unhappy pri- 
soner, a woman accused of murdering her child, but who 
resolutely denied the crime. Neither his persuasions, 
however, nor Latimer’s, could induce her to acknowledge 
herself guilty ; and the more they reasoned with her, the 
more they felt assured of her innocence. They deter- 
mined to use every effort to procure her pardon ; and 
quite unexpectedly a strange concurrence of circumstances 
brought Latimer to Court, and enabled him to accomplish 
his purpose. But the incidents of this period must be 
narrated with greater detail; they formed an important 
epoch in Latimer’s life, terminating his connection with 
the University, and introducing him at last to his true 
position as one of the great leaders of the public opinion 
of his day. 

On Sunday, December 19, 1529, Latimer preached in 
St. Edward’s Church two sermons which again filled the 
University with strife and debate, and which still retain a 
species of nominal fame in English literature. These 
were the famous ‘Sermons on the Card,’ and _ their 
importance demands that some attempt should be made 
to give the reader an idea of their contents. 

* Latimer’s Sermons, p. 335. 


82 From 1526 to 1531 


The text, taken from the Gospel for the day, was the 
question of the Pharisees to the Baptist, ‘Who art thou ?’ 
The same question, the preacher said, every one of his 
hearers might ask themselves, and if they answered 
honestly, the reply would be in every case, ‘Of myself 
I am the child of the ire and indignation of God, a lump 
of sin.” This was the condition of every man as he 
entered the world ; but Christ had come to redeem and 
restore man, so that now every one could return a joyful 
answer to the question and say, ‘I am a Christian man, a 
child of everlasting joy through the merits of the bitter 
passion of Christ.’ Next came another question to be 
considered—if men were Christians, what was it expected 
by Christ that Christians should do? In few words, He 
expected them to follow His rule, as the Augustinian friars 
followed St. Augustine’s rule. This was a large subject, 
however, and required much elucidation, and the preacher 
proposed to explain it on that occasion by dealing out to 
them ‘ Christ’s cards.’ 

It was the custom of the time to ‘celebrate Christmas 
in playing at cards’; and he proposed to explain to his 
hearers how they might play with Christ’s cards, so as to 
be winners and not losers. The first card was this: ‘ Ye# 
have heard what was spoken to them of the old law, 
‘Thou shalt not kill, whoever shall kill shall be in danger 
of the judgment ;’ but I say unto you of the new law, 
that whosoever is angry with his neighbour shall be in 
danger of judgment, and whosoever shall say unto his 
neighbour Raca, that is to say, ‘ brainless,” or any other 
like word of rebuking, shall be in danger of council ; and 
whosoever shall say unto his neighbour, ‘fool,’ shall be in 
danger of hell-fire’’ The preacher then proceeds to 
explain the meaning of this card. Men thought it suffi- 
cient not to kill with any material weapon as a sword or 
dagger ; but Christ’s rule required them not to kill by 
angry words and looks, or by cherishing hatred and envy 


Christ’s Cards 83 


in the heart. When, therefore, angry passions rose up in 
our hearts, and threatened to rule over us, and to excite 
us against our neighbours, we should call to remembrance 
that we are Christian men; we should take up this card 
with Christ’s rule upon it, and laying it on our heart, we 
should then have won the game. There were many 
ways of killing; if fathers and mothers, and masters, were 
to give way to angry passions, and indulge in malice, and 
impatience, and bitter words, then what could be expected 
in children and servants but to follow the example thus 
set before them. But men might also be killed through 
silence ; if masters and fathers suffered their children and 
apprentices to cheat, or do any wrong without correcting 
them, they were ‘ killing their children and servants, and 
should go to hell for so doing.’ Thus there were many 
ways of breaking Christ’s rule, and many Christians, not 
understanding this card aright, were likely to be great losers. 

In the same way Latimer explained what was meant by 
Christ’s second card: ‘When thou makest thine oblation 
at mine altar, and there dost remember that thy neighbour 
hath anything against thee, lay down there thy oblation, 
and go first and reconcile thy neighbour, and then come 
and offer thy oblation.’ This was another card often 
misunderstood and badly played. Men provoked and 
injured one another, and forgot that God required them, 
before even coming to worship Him, to go and do what 
lay in them to bring their neighbours back into charity 
and love. And, indeed, as Latimer looked around him at 
the worship everywhere offered to God, he saw nothing 
but a systematic and gigantic violation of this great rule 
of Christ; men everywhere substituting sacrifice for 
obedience, the Church even teaching her children to com- 
pound for the open violation and neglect of God’s laws by 
exhibitions of extraordinary voluntary piety. And this 
_ Sight, that had often before grieved his heart, drew from 
him the eloquent peroration of his sermons. 


84 | From 1526 to 1531 


‘Evermore bestow the greatest part of thy goods in 
. works of mercy, and the less part in voluntary works. 
Voluntary works be called all manner of offering in the 
Church, except your four offering-days,t and your tithes ; 
setting up candles, gilding and painting, building of 
churches, giving of ornaments, going on pilgrimages, 
making of highways, and such other, be called voluntary 
works, which works be of themselves marvellous good, and 
convenient to be done. Necessary works are called the 
commandments, the four offering-days, your tithes, and 


such other that belong to the commandments ; and works ~ 


of mercy consist in relieving and visiting thy poor neigh- 
bours. Now then, if men be so foolish of themselves that 
they will bestow the most part of their goods in voluntary 
works, which they be not bound to keep, but willingly 
and by their devotion, and leave the necessary works 
undone which they are bound to do, they and all their 
voluntary works are like to go unto everlasting damnation. 
And I promise you, if you build a hundred churches, give 
as much as you can make to the gilding of saints and 
honouring of the church, and if thou go as many pilgrim- 
ages as thy body can well suffer, and offer as great candles 
as oaks; if thou leave the works of mercy and the 
commandments undone, these works shall nothing avail 
thee. No doubt the voluntary works be good, and ought 
to be done ; but yet they must be so done that by their 
occasion the necessary works, and the works of mercy, be 
not decayed and forgotten. If you will build a glorious 
church unto God, see first yourselves to be in charity with 
your neighbours, and suffer not them to be offended by 


your works. Then, when ye come into your parish church, | 


you bring with you the holy temple of God. Again, if you 
list to gild and paint Christ in your churches, and honour 
Him in vestments, see that before your eyes the poor 


® Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and the feast of the patron saint 
of the Church. 


~ 


Results of the Sermons 85 


people die not for lack of meat, drink, and clothing. Then 
do you deck the very true temple of God, and honour Him 
in rich vestures that will never be worn, and so forth use 
yourselves, according unto the commandments; and 
then, finally, set up your candles, and they will report 
what a glorious light remaineth in your hearts, for it is 
not fitting to see a dead man light candles. Then, I say, 
go your pilgrimages, build your material churches, do all 
your voluntary works ; and they will then represent you 
unto God, and testify with you, that you have provided 
Him a glorious place in your hearts.’ 

Whatever may be thought of the preacher’s somewhat 
unusual device to attract the attention of his hearers, there 
can be but one opinion as to the soundness of his teaching, 
and the eminently practical value of the duties which he 
enforced. The vulgarity and violence which have been 
sometimes ignorantly ascribed to Latimer, are nowhere to 
be found in these sermons ; indeed, they are nowhere to 
be found in his writings. He does not even enter into 
those doctrinal controversies which we usually associate 
with the preaching of a Reformer, for to him the Refor- 
mation was not so much the revival of old scriptural truth 
long concealed, as the restoration of an old scriptural life 
that had been almost totally obscured by ceremonies and 
ecclesiastical superstitions. To a modern reader the 
sermons may seem commonplace enough; the duty of 
preferring obedience to sacrifice, the plain commands of 
God to voluntary exhibitions of religious zeal, is sufficiently 
recognised, in words at least, among us; and we are 
therefore at a loss to imagine that Latimer’s preaching 
could have excited any special attention, much less that 
it could have provoked a fierce controversy. But the 
champions of the Church would not allow a single stone 
of their edifice to be touched with impunity; all was 
sacred, and no impious hand must be raised against it. 
To cut off the offerings was to abridge the revenues of the 


86 From 1526 to 1531 


clergy, and any such proposal must therefore be resisted 
to the last. 

It was felt by Latimer’s opponents that his sermons, 
with their homely illustrations, were a great hit ; they took 
the public fancy, and, unless speedily answered, they 
were likely to spread far and wide the contagion of 
heretical doctrines. It was resolved, therefore, to answer 
them in the same vein; and Buckenham, Prior of the 
Dominican friars, appeared as the champion of the old 
orthodoxy against the attacks of Latimer. 

The most offensive feature in Latimer’s sermons had 
been the tacit assumption that all ought to have free 
permission to read Holy Scriptures for themselves ; and 
this was the position which Buckenham was most anxious 
to overthrow. Latimer had dealt out Christmas cards to 
his audience ; Buckenham proposed to teach them the 
game of Christmas dice,and to show them how to cast 
cingue and quatre to the confusion of Latimer’s Lutheran 
opinions. The quatre were the four doctors of the Church 
(St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory), 
who were assumed to be opposed to the free circulation 
of the Scriptures in the vernacular ; and by cinque were 
meant five passages in the New Testament, from which he 
attempted to show that the reading of Scripture by the 
common people was inexpedient and pre-eminently dan- 
gerous to society. For Scripture, he said, was full of 
figurative language, which the uneducated would assuredly 
misunderstand to their own ruin. 

‘Thus,’ he asked, with a smile of triumph, ‘ where 
Scripture saith, “No man that layeth his hand to the 
plough, and looketh back, is meet for the kingdom of 
God,” will not the ploughman, when he readeth these 
words, be apt forthwith to cease from his plough, and 
then where will be the sowing and harvest? Likewise, 
also, whereas the baker readeth, “A little leaven leaveneth 
the whole lump,” will he not forthwith be too sparing in 


The Prior Answered 87 


the use of leaven, to the great injury of our health? And 
so, also, when the simple man reads the words, “ If thine 
eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee,” incon- 
tinent he will pluck out his eyes, and so the whole realm 
will be full of blind men, to the great decay of the nation, 
and the manifest loss of the King’s grace. And thus by 
reading of Holy Scriptures will the whole kingdom come 
in confusion ; so when Master Latimer deals out hiscards, 
we cast our cinque-quatre upon them, and lo! we have 
won the game.’ 

The prior’s wit was not the most brilliant in the world, 
and it was, therefore, not a very difficult task for a man of 
Latimer’s ready humour to overwhelm him with ridicule. 
The baker and the ploughman, Latimer replied, might be 
safely trusted, notwithstanding the occasional occurrence of 
figurative expressions, to read the Scriptures in their native 
language ; at least, it would be time enough to prohibit 
them when such dangerous consequences as Buckenham 
had predicted were actually found to occur. The figures 
of Scripture were not very mysterious of comprehension ; 
moreover, added he, figures are not confined to Scripture. 
‘Every speech hath its metaphors, so common and vulgar 
to all men, that the very painters do paint them on walls 
and in houses. As for example’ [and here he looked 
straight at Buckenham *], ‘when they paint a fox preach- 
ing out of a friar’s cowl, none is so mad as to take this to 
be a fox that preacheth, but know well enough the meaning 
of the matter, which is to paint out unto us what hypocrisy, 
craft, and dissimulation, lie hid many times in these friars’ 
cowls, willing us thereby to beware of them.’ 

The prior was extinguished for the time amid universal 
laughter ; and other opponents fared equally ill in contest 
with Latimer’s keen, trenchant sarcasm. The controversy, 
however, only waxed the louder and fiercer, St. John’s 


* On the subsequent life of Buckenham, see my Life of Tindale, 
P- 431 and note. 


88 From 1526 to 1531 


College being especially bitter against Latimer ; and the 
University was again involved in a hot warfare. The truth 
is, other elements of rancour had been imported into the 
controversy, and the mimic academic warfare was merely 
an isolated fragment of that struggle which had arrayed all 
England in two hostile camps. An unexpected peace- 
maker at length intervened; and the following letter, 
which terminated the University hostilities, will naturally 
introduce us to a brief survey of that all-engrossing 
theme which, besides many other important results, was 
the means of bringing Latimer before the eyes of the 
whole nation. : 


From Dr. Edward Fox (the Royal Almoner), to the 
Vice-Chancellor (Dr. Buckmaster). * 

‘It hath been greatly complained unto the King’s 
highness of the shameful contentions used now of late 
between Mr. Latimer and certain of St. John’s College, ? 
insomuch His Grace intendeth to set some order therein, 
which should not be greatly to yours and others the Heads 
of the Universities’ worship. ... It is not unlikely but 
that they of St. John’s proceedeth of some private malice 
towards Mr. Latimer, and that also they be animated so to 
do by their master, Mr. Watson, and such other my Lord 
of Rochester’s friends’ [Fisher, Bishop of Rochester]. 
‘Which malice also, peradventure, cometh partly for that 
Mr. Latimer favoureth the King’s cause ; and I assure you it 
is so reported to the King. And contrary, peradventure, 
Mr. Latimer being by them exasperated is more vehement 
than becometh the very evangelist of Christ, and de 
industria speaketh in his sermons certain paradoxa to 
offend and slander the people; which I assure you in 
my mind is neither wisely done as things are now, nor 

* Lamb’s Original Documents, etc., from Corpus Christi College, 
Cambridge, p. 14. 


2 Bayn, Rud, Greenwood, Proctor and Brigenden, all of St. John’s, 
were among Latimer’s bitterest opponents. 


‘The King’s Cause’ 89 


like a godly evangelist. Ye shall therefore, in my opinion 
do well to command both of them to silence, and that 
neither of them from henceforth preach until ye know 
further of the King’s pleasure. 

‘At London, 24th January (1530).’ 


On the receipt of this imperative missive, the Vice- 
Chancellor took steps to compose the strife which was 
raging so fiercely in the University. He appointed a day 
on which Latimer’s opponents were to bring forward 
publicly any accusation that they wished to lay against 
him. No one having appeared, the Vice-Chancellor sum- 
moned a meeting of the senate (January 29, 1530), placed 
all the parties before him, and conjured them, as they 
feared the King’s displeasure, no longer to disturb the 
peace of the University with their debates. Latimer was 
enjoined, under penalty of excommunication, ‘to touch no 
such things in the pulpit as had been in controversy 
between him and others’; and was besides warned ‘to 
be circumspect and discreet in his sermons, and speak no 
such thing as might be occasion of offence’ to his audience. 
His opponents, Greenwood, Brigenden, Bayn, and others, 
were at the same time reminded that Latimer had satisfac- 
torily explained all the articles imputed to him, and they 
were accordingly admonished, under pain of excommuni- 
cation, to be silent in time to come. 

Thus peace was for the time restored to the University 
on one subject which had been drawn into debate ; but the 
other great question, ‘ the King’s cause,’ as Fox styles it in 
his letter, continued to be discussed with the fiercest 
animosity in Cambridge and over all England. This was, 
of course, the great question of Henry’s divorce from 
Catherine ; a question destined to be pregnant with the 
most momentous results. Into all the intricacies of this 
perplexing subject it would be foreign for this biography to 


* Lamb’s Documents, etc., p. 16. 


90 From 1526 to 1531 


enter ; but some brief notice of its progress is indispens- 
able to the right understanding of this period of Latimer’s 
life. 

To some minds the subject of Henry’s divorce presents 
no difficulties. They consider Henry asa profligate wretch, 
a perfect monster in human shape, and they believe that 
there never was any other reason for the divorce except the 
passion of a dissolute king for a younger and fairer woman 
than his wife. This theory is a very simple one, and 
certainly Henry’s greatest admirers must admit that his 
relations with his numerous queens stand considerably in 
need of explanation and defence ; still there are other facts 
concerning the divorce of which history is bound to take 
cognisance. It is certain, for example, that up to this 
period Henry’s life had not been one of profligacy ; he 
had not been blameless, indeed, but the theory which 
represents him as a lawless debauchee has very little con- 
firmation in fact. It is also certain that in 1526 the French 
ambassadors threw out doubts as to the validity of his 
marriage, and the consequent legitimacy of his daughter 
Mary; and as the succession to the throne was thus 
brought into dispute, and England menaced with a civil 
war, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Henry, if he 
never doubted before, now began to ask himself whether 
his marriage was not condemned by the law of God. And 
if he turned to Scripture for the resolution of the difficulties 
thus excited in his mind, his conscience would be made 
still more uneasy ; for the very curse pronounced in 
Leviticus, ‘ They shall be childless,’ seemed to have fallen 
upon his house ; of many children only one survived, and 
she a female, whose legitimacy was questioned by foreign 
sovereigns. 

These were the reasons assigned by Henry himself for 
moving in the divorce, and it seems impossible to set them 
aside as altogether idle pretexts. Even, therefore, if Anne 
Boleyn had not appeared on the scene, it seems likely that 


The Pope Consulted ol 


the question would still have arisen. Moreover, Catherine 
always affirmed that Wolsey’s eager desire for revenge 
upon the Emperor for his perfidy, prompted him to 
suggest to Henry that his marriage was sinful, that he 
might thus wound Charles through his aunt ; and if any 
weight is to be attached to this suspicion, it will confirm 
the theory that the divorce was a question independent of 
Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn, for Wolsey would never 
have recommended such a step in order to promote her 
marriage to Henry. There can be no doubt, however, that 
other reasons contributed to stimulate Henry’s anxiety for 
a divorce. Catherine was considerably older than her 
husband ; she had lost her personal attractions ; she was 
dull and heavy, and Henry needed amusement and loved 
sprightliness ; and Anne Boleyn, young, fair, full of glee and 
lively spirits, had made a deep impression upon his affec- 
tions. The early history of Anne is still somewhat involved 
in obscurity, but it seems placed beyond doubt that Henry 
had seen and admired her some years before the divorce 
was mooted ; and when the possibility of a divorce was 
suggested, his thoughts would naturally turn to her as the 
successor to his discarded queen. 

The divorce, however, required the Papal sanction. 
Henry accordingly submitted to Clement VII. the question 
of the lawfulness of his marriage, in the confident expec- 
tation of a speedy cancelling of his wedlock, and free 
permission to select another spouse. His arguments he 
believed to be unanswerable: his present marriage was 
forbidden by the law of God ; his conscience was opposed 
to it ; the peace of the cuuntry was endangered by the want 
of heirs to the crown ; he was, moreover, an obedient son 
of the Church ; he had given no countenance to heresy ; he 
had written against Luther ; he was a powerful monarch 
whom it was dangerous to disoblige ; and Henry, there- 
fore, saw no reason to doubt the Pope’s compliance. 

But the unhappy Pope was placed in a cruel dilemma 


92 From 1526 to 1531 


by Henry’s request. He admitted the substantial justice 
of Henry’s cause; but he feared to offend the Emperor 
by declaring his aunt’s marriage sinful. The Pope was at 
the time absolutely at the Emperor’s mercy. Rome had 
been taken and sacked (May, 1527) by the imperial 
troops; and the Pontiff, in his retirement at Orvieto, 
was virtually a prisoner completely in the Emperor’s 
power. For years the wretched man—the Vicar of 
Christ, as he called himself—endeavoured to avoid any 
open breach with either of the two monarchs, and vainly 
sought by diplomacy and intrigue to find some outlet from 
the difficulty that enclosed him on all sides. He hoped 
that Henry’s passion might cool by delay ; he attempted 
to induce Catherine to retire into a nunnery ; he suggested 
that Henry might be allowed to have two wives. To 
please Henry he sent bulls and missives into England, 
but they were always found deficient in some point of 
prime importance. 

All was in vain: the Emperor was displeased at the 
case being entertained at all; Henry was indignant at the 
slight thrown upon himself, and the injury done to the 
justice of his cause. The nation began to murmur at 
what seemed an insult to the national independence. 
Henry threatened the Pope with the possible estrange- 
ment of England from the Papal see; and Wolsey, 
apprehensive of his sovereign’s anger, urged Clement to 
come to some decision. Thus solicited, the Pope seemed 
to take the necessary steps for settling the question. A 
commission was granted to two legates, Campeggio and 
Wolsey, to decide the legality of Henry’s marriage. 
Every artifice, however, was used to delay the sitting of 
the tribunal. Campeggio was appointed in April, 1528, 
but it was June, 1529, before he actually sat on that 
memorable trial, familiar to all English people from 
Shakspere’s words. Nothing was decided; on an absurd 
pretext the court was adjourned till October, and never 


Cranmer’s Proposal 93 


met again. The Italian Proteus was not to be held fast 
by mere English main force. The Queen appealed to 
Rome, as it was intended she should do; his Holiness 
immediately avocated the cause to his own courts, and 
everything had to be begun again de novo. 

This last successful stroke of diplomatic finesse proved 
too much for Henry’s temper. Hitherto he had waited 
with exemplary patience the Pope’s decision on his case ; 
now the divorce entered on a new phase. His marriage 
with Catherine had been originally sanctioned by a Papal 
dispensation. It was admitted by all that the Pope could 
dispense with any regulations merely ecclesiastical ; it 
was no ecclesiastical ordinance, however, but a Divine 
law, which prohibited marriage with a deceased brother’s 
wife, and it was now asked, ‘Had the Pope authority to 
dispense with the laws of God? Was not Henry’s 
marriage null and void all along as proceeding upon a 
dispensation which it was beyond the Pope’s prerogative 
to grant?’ Of this new question the Pope manifestly 
could not be the judge, for he was a party interested in 
the decision; some other tribunal must determine it. 
A general council, had it been possible to summon one, 
would have been the most fitting court to try such a 
question ; failing that, various other schemes, more or 
less unsatisfactory, were suggested. 

At last, however, the right man to cope with the 
emergency was found. In the autumn of 1529 Henry 
had left London to avoid the plague, and was residing at 
Waltham. His attendants were quartered in some of the 
neighbouring houses, and there Fox and Gardiner met 
Thomas Cranmer, a Cambridge scholar, who had thought 
much on the King’s case, and seemed to himself to see a 
clear way out of all its intricacies. ‘Why not submit the 
- case,’ he said, ‘to the Universities of Christendom? If 
they should decide that the marriage was contrary to the 
Divine law, and beyond the power of a Papal dispen- 


94 From 1526 to 1531 


sation, then the King might contract a second marriage 
without waiting for any sanction from Rome.’ 

The suggestion was reported to Henry, who at once 
saw that it was practicable, or, as he phrased it in his 
blunt way, ‘Cranmer had the right sow by the ear.’ 
Cranmer was appointed one of the Royal chaplains, and 
drew up a statement of the ‘ King’s cause,’ which was 
submitted, by accredited agents to the chief foreign 
universities... In a few months the Universities of Paris, 
Orleans, Anjou, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Padua, and Bologna, 
decided that marriage with a deceased brother’s wife was 
‘contra jus divinum et naturale, and that the Pope, even 
though ‘entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven,’ could not grant a dispensation in such a case. 
It is beyond doubt that bribery and intimidation were to 
some extent employed in procuring the favourable verdict, 
but as the Holy Infallible See itself was acting under the 
same influences, it seems hard and unfair for historians to 
pour out the vials of their virtuous indignation on a mere 
fallible layman like Henry, for having recourse to base 
means of persuasion.? 

The English Universities also were consulted on the 
weighty question ; and opinion was by no means decidedly 
in Henry’s favour in those seats of learning. At Oxford, 
the younger masters were so refractory that Henry gave 
them a very plain hint that if they insisted on ‘playing 
masteries, they should soon perceive that it was not wise 
to stir up a hornet’s nest (quod non bonum esset irritare 


? It has been objected to this story, told by Fuller and others, that 
the University of Orleans decided in Henry’s favour, April 5, 1529, and 
that, therefore, Cranmer’s advice, given in August, 1529, could not have 
been the motive that induced Henry to consult the Universities. But 
the objection is founded on ignorance ; in France the ecclesiastical 
year was reckoned from Easter ; and in 1530 Easter fell on April 17, 
so that April 5, 1529, of the decision, means April 5, 1530, of ordinary 
reckoning. Moreover, it may be asked, how do the objectors explain 
Cranmer’s sudden advancement, if they reject the common account ? 

2 See Croke’s Letter in Burnet, vol. iv. p. 135 ; and Froude, vol. ii. 


The Appeal to Cambridge 95 


crabrones).* In fact, measures almost amounting to 
personal intimidation were employed before the University 
could be induced to decide in Henry’s favour? At 
Cambridge the opposition was equally determined ; but, 
partly perhaps because Cranmer was a Cambridge man, 
Henry had an able body of advocates, of whom Crome, 
Shaxton, and Latimer were the chief. 

*On February 15, 1530, just as the disturbance occasioned 
by the Sermons on the Cards was dying down, the Vice- 
Chancellor was requested to submit to the University the 
question whether marriage with a deceased brother’s 
wife was prohibited by the law of God. The request was 
accompanied by sundry hints not difficult to interpret, of 
Henry’s favour to the University in times past, and his 
confidence that they would decide so as to gratify him. 
The decision, it was agreed, should be referred to a 
committee, which included Latimer, Crome, and others 
among the Reformers, as well as Watson, Bayn, and some 
of the bitterest enemies of the Reformation; and Fox 
and Gardiner were to undertake the task of securing a 
decision in Henry’s favour. But the opposition was 
zealous and resolute ; objection was made to Latimer and 
others, as having already committed themselves on the 
question ; and it seemed as if the King were to be con- 
demned in his own realm. Gardiner, however, was 
determined to carry his point; after twice failing to 
secure a majority, he induced some of the more timid 
members to retire, and at length succeeded in obtaining, 
though with an embarrassing addition, some such decision 
as Henry desired.s 

Gardiner’s account of the whole transaction has been 
preserved ; and we can have little difficulty in gathering 
from it that the majority of the University were decidedly 
opposed to the King’s request. It is not a little curious 


* Burnet’s Records, vol. vi. p. 38. 2 State Papers, vol. i. p. 377. 
3 Burnet, vol. iv> p. 130. 


vw 


96 From 1526 to 1531 


also that Gardiner’s letter contains no allusion to Latimer. 
Salcot and Reps are mentioned as the chief defenders of 
the Royal cause, but not a word is written in recognition 
of the services of Latimer. Probably Gardiner was 
unwilling to bestow any praise on one whose orthodoxy 
was so generally suspected ; but, fortunately, Henry had 
other less prejudiced emissaries at Cambridge. Sir 
William Butts, the royal physician, a man not unknown to 
admirers of Shakspere.and Holbein, was in the University 
during the debate. He at once perceived the eminent 
ability of Latimer ; and on his return to Court he reported 
faithfully to Henry what he had seen and heard of the 
progress of his ‘great cause.’ 

Latimer was accordingly invited to Windsor, where 
Henry was spending the Lent of 1530, sore perplexed by 
the difficulties of his position, and keenly feeling the want 
of some sagacious adviser to fill the place of the fallen 
Wolsey. The fame of Latimer’s preaching had already 
reached the ears of the King, who was determined to 
judge for himself of the character of that eloquence which 
had produced such a sensation in the University of 
Cambridge. On the second Sunday in Lent, therefore, 
March 13, 1530, Latimer for the first time preached before 
the Court. The subject of his sermon has not been 
recorded ; but as it was Latimer’s practice ‘to frame his 
doctrine according to his audience,’ we may take for 
granted that his discourse was no smooth collection of 
commonplaces tricked out with rhetorical art, but some 
plain honest exposition of Christian duty, with special 
reference to the peculiar duty devolving upon kings. 
Among his audience was the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge 
who had just arrived with the University decision on 
Henry’s question ; and to him we are indebted for an 
exceedingly graphic and frank description of the whole 
occurrence. 

‘On the second Sunday in Lent, at afternoon, I came 


~ 


Latimer at Court 97 


to Windsor, and also to part of Mr. Latimer’s sermon ; 
and after the end of the same, I spake with Mr. Secretary 
(Gardiner), and also with Mr. Provost (Fox), and so at 
after even-song, I delivered our letters in the chamber of 
presence, all the Court beholding. His Highness gave 
me there great thanks, and talked with me a good while. 
He much lauded our wisdoms and good conveyance in 
the matter, with the great quietness in the same. He 
showed me also what he had in his hands for our 
University’ [some reward to recompense them for a 
favourable decision]. ‘So he departed’ [went to speak 
to some others in the room]. ‘ But by and by he greatly 
praised Mr. Latimer’s sermon, and in so praising said in 
this wise—“ This displeaseth greatly Mr. Vice-Chancellor 
yonder. Yon same,’ said he unto the Duke of Norfolk, 
‘is Mr. Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,” and so pointed 
unto me. Then he spake secretly unto the said Duke, 
which, after the King’s departure, came unto me, and 
welcomed me, saying, amongst other things, that the King 
would speak with me on the next day: and here is the 
first act. 

‘On the next day, I waited until it was dinner time’ 
[mo one taking any notice of him] ; ‘and so at the last 
Dr. Butts came unto me, and brought a reward, twenty 
nobles for me, and five marks for the younger proctor 
which was with me, saying that I should take that fora 
resolute answer’ [7.e., for an answer that should really 
decide the question submitted to them, and not evade it, 
as had been done at Cambridge], ‘and that I might depart 
from the Court when I would. Then came Mr. Provost, 
and when I had showed him of the answer, he said I 
should speak unto the King at after dinner for all that, 
and so brought me into a privy place, where as he would 
have me to wait. At after dinner I came thither and he 
both, and by one of the clock the King entered in. It 
was in a gallery. There were Mr. Secretary, Mr. Provost, 


7 


98 From 1526 to 1531 


Mr. Latimer, Mr. Proctor, and I, and no more; the King 
there talked with us until six of the clock. I assure you, 
he was scarce contented with Mr. Secretary, and Mr. 
Provost, that this was not also determined, An papa possit 
dispensare’ [whether the Pope could grant a dispensation 
for a marriage that was contrary to the Divine Law]. 
‘I made the best’ [excuse], ‘and confirmed the same 
that they had showed His Grace before, and how it could 
never have been so obtained. Then His Highness 
departed, and I shortly after took my leave of Mr. 
Secretary and Mr. Provost, with whom I did not drink, 
nor yet was bidden ; and on the morrow departed from 
thence, thinking more than I did say, and being glad that 
I was out of the Court. 

‘Mr. Latimer preacheth still, quod emuli ejus graviter 
ferunt’ [to the great annoyance of his opponents]. 

The Vice-Chancellor’s letter? is dated ‘the day after 
Palm Sunday,’ i.e, April 11, and from this it appears 
that Latimer still continued to preach, i.e, was not 
suspended. It was Latimer’s first appearance at Court, 
his first entrance on that wider sphere of action where he 
was afterwards to play so distinguished a part ; and though 
he again returned for a brief sojourn to the University, it 
was impossible, in the struggle that was at hand, that a 
preacher of his ability could be left in the comparative 
seclusion of Cambridge. It may have been on this 
occasion that Anne Boleyn first saw and heard one who 
_had so effectually served her cause, and gratitude may not 
unnaturally have prepossessed her in his favour; it is well 
known, however, that she entertained a high esteem for 
Latimer, and that her patronage subsequently secured his 
elevation to a bishopric, a kindness for which she was 
amply repaid, if his words in any way contributed to lead 
her to a better knowledge of the truth. 

A first sermon before the sovereign is too important an 


* Lamb’s Original Documents. 


Latimer and the King 99 


epoch in any one’s life to be readily forgotten, and various 
circumstances occurred to impress it on Latimer’s 
memory. The reader will remember the unfortunate 
prisoner in whose fate Latimer and Bilney were so deeply 
interested just as the storm of controversy began to rage 
at Cambridge. The summons to Windsor would, no 
doubt, appear to them, at such a crisis, as a special inter- 
position of Divine favour ; and Latimer was not slow to 
avail himself of the opportunity so unexpectedly afforded 
him. ‘I was called to preach before the King,’ he says, 
in subsequently relating the occurrence, ‘which was my 
first sermon that I made before His Majesty, and it was 
done at Windsor ; where His Majesty, after the sermon 
was done, did most familiarly talk with me in a gallery. 
Now, when I saw my time, I kneeled down before His 
Majesty, opening the whole matter’ [about the prisoner] ; 
‘and afterwards most humbly desired His Majesty to 
pardon that woman. The King most graciously heard my 
humble request, insomuch that I had a pardon ready for 
her at my return homewards.’? 

Henry’s approbation of Latimer’s sermons was not 
confined to words; the preacher’s services were hand- 
somely recompensed, as the following entry shows :— 

‘Item the 16th day’ [of March, 1530], ‘ paied to Maister 
Latymer, that preached bifore the King the ijde Sunday 
Bebemeo. VL.’ ? 

Five pounds in Henry’s time was equivalent to £75 of our 
money, and was no unsuitable honorarium for a monarch 
to bestow, or for a preacher of eminence to receive. 

The reader, who has perhaps been accustomed to think 
of Henry as a despot armed with absolute power, whose 
will it was impossible to resist, must have read with some 
surprise the account of the resolute and powerful opposition 
made by the two English Universities to any decision in 


* Latimer’s Sermons, p. 335. 
2 Sir H. Nicholas’ Privy Purse Expense of Henry VIII, 


100 From 1526 to 1531 


his favour in the important matter of his divorce. At any 
other time the question of the divorce might have received 
from the Pope and the Church a fair and impartial 
consideration ; and it is by no means certain, ‘according 
to the principles of the canon law, that the merits of the 
process were against Henry.’t But at such a period, 
when a Reformation was in progress, Churchmen felt that 
a decision which should condemn the conduct of a 
deceased Pope, and limit the Pope’s dispensing power, 
was in reality a serious blow to the authority and infalli- 
bility of the Papal See. Hence proceeded the determined 
opposition in the English Universities, where of course 
the influence of the Church was all-powerful: Henry’s 
proposal seemed to them to be the thin end of the wedge, 
which might lead the way to the introduction of other 
Reformed opinions and practices, and therefore they used 
every effort to refer the decision absolutely to the reigning 
Pontiff. 

This opposition brought on the crisis of which Wolsey 
had so often in vain warned Clement. Henry was the 
most orthodox of Catholics ; none of his titles pleased him 
half so well as that of ‘Defender of the Faith’; but he 
was determined to be absolute and supreme ruler in his 
own dominions, and would no longer submit to be 
exhibited before his subjects as struggling in vain against 
the power of a foreign ecclesiastic. The departure of 
Campeggio in the autumn of 1529 was the signal for 
Wolsey’s ruin. ‘The hand that made him could unmake 
him when it listed” The Cardinal was immediately 
indicted for procuring Bulls from Rome, in contravention 
of the Statute of Provisors. He might have pleaded in 
defence the King’s express licence for what he had done, 
but he knew Henry’s temper too well; he threw himself 
upon the royal clemency, acknowledged his guilt, and 
surrendered all his treasures. Sir Thomas More, a layman, 

* Hallam’s Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 61. 12mo edition. 


Parliament and the Church IOI 


was elevated to the Chancellorship, an ominous token of 
the coming downfall of the ecclesiastical power ; and a 
Parliament was summoned, the first for more than six years. 
The Parliament assembled in the beginning of November, 
1529, and speedily evinced the spirit by which it was 
animated. The Commons complained loudly of the intoler- 
able grievances inflicted by the clergy upon the people, of 
the monstrous fees extorted in the Bishop’s Courts for the 
Probates of Wills, of the shameful exaction of Mortuaries' 
even from the poorest, and of the gross negligence of the 
clergy who left their cures to busy themselves in secular 
pursuits. These were not the exaggerated complaints of 
Protestants looking at the Church through the medium of 
hostile prejudices; they were the same old grievances 
which Bishops and ecclesiastical courts had for ages con- 
demned, and had in vain attempted to remedy.? The 
Spiritual Peers in the House of Lords, those who derived 
their wealth from these abuses, were of course indignant 
at the complaints of the Commons; they ‘ frowned and 
grunted,’ says the blunt old chronicler of the period, ‘and 
spoke of heresy and the Church in danger’; but the King 
was determined, the Commons were resolute, and measures 
were passed to limit the extortion of the clergy. Lest, 
however, it should be supposed that these proceedings 
sprang from any sympathy with the opinions of the Refor- 
mers, Henry issued a proclamation in December, ordering 
all heretical books, and especially the English New Testa- 
ment, to be delivered up, and empowering the Bishops to 
use all diligence in arresting the progress of heresy, by 
seizing all suspected persons, and handing over the guilty 
and relapsed to the civil power for condign punishment. 
The measures of Parliament, indicating a manifest deter- 
mination to withstand the proud claims of the Church, were 
hailed with the utmost satisfaction by the many secret 


t i.¢., dues claimed by the priests on the death of parishioners. 
? See Warham’s canons in Wikins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 717. 


102 From 1526 to 1531 


friends of the Reformation in England. Even Henry’s 
proclamation did not altogether damp and overthrow their 
hopes ; they believed that the King was secretly with them, 
and that he would not seriously enforce the prohibition 
against the free circulation of the English Bible. Every- 
where it was whispered that the ‘ King’s grace would that 
they should have their books, and that ere Michaelmas the 
majority in the country would adhere to them.’ Thus 
this matter of the free circulation of what were styled 
‘heretical books’ had become one of the great questions 
of the day, and Henry resolved to be regulated in the 
decision of it by the wisdom of his Universities. 

On May 4, accordingly, he again wrote to the Vice- 
Chancellor of Cambridge, intimating that he wished to 
summon the best learned men of the realm to examine the 
contents of the numerous books on religious subjects that 
were so widely circulated in England, ‘that they might 
reprove what was erroneous and seditious, and approve 
what was good and fruitful”? Twelve Cambridge men 
learned in divinity were to be selected and sent to London 
to assist in deciding these important questions; the same 
number were selected from Oxford ; and Henry himself 
nominated several others of eminence to assist in the 
deliberations. It is a proof of the prominent position in 
the University which Latimer had now reached that he 
was chosen at once as one of the twelve delegates from 
Cambridge. 

No record has been preserved of the deliberations of this 
assembly ; but with such men as Sir Thomas More,3 | 
Gardiner, and Tunstal on the one side, and Latimer, 
Crome, and the famous scholar William Latimer,4 on the 


t Letter of Bishop Nix to Warham, May 14, 1530; Anderson’s 
Annals, i. 256. 2 Lamb’s Original Documents, etc., p. 24. 

3 ‘Mr. More,’ says Tindale, ‘was their chief orator to feign lies for 
their purpose.’ Answer to More’s Dialogue, III. 168. Parker Society 
Edition. . 

4 He was no relation, so far as can be ascertained of our Reformer, 
though always a friend to the Reformation. 


Progress Checked 103 


other, there would be no lack of able theological discussion. 
All were invited to state their opinions frankly. ‘ Holy 
Scripture was declared, holy doctors and authors were 
alleged and read, and all things which might on both sides 
be spoken and brought forward, were said.’? Finally, after 
a busy session of twelve days, the conference closed its 
labours in the presence of Henry, in a solemn meeting in 
St. Edward’s chamber at Westminster Palace, May 24. 
The Reformers had been completely outnumbered ; the 
works of Tindale? were condemned as full of ‘great errors 
and pestilent heresies’; the New Testament in English, 
and the Old also, viz., the Pentateuch, was especially 
singled out for censure, and its use was forbidden. That 
there might be no misunderstanding of the King’s intentions, 
a Royal proclamation was issued against these heretical 
books; and certain preachers were selected from the 
assembly to read a declaration exhorting the people to 
‘expel and purge from their breasts all contagious doctrine 
and pestiferous traditions,’ which they might have received 
from reading the New Testament in English ! that so they 
might be ‘apt to receive the true doctrine and understand- 
ing of Christ’s laws to the edification of their souls.’ 

To add humiliation to defeat, Latimer’s name was 
appended with the others to a proclamation as sanctioning 
a sentence which he had all along opposed, and which he 
detested from the bottom of his heart. The only ray of 
hope, in what must have seemed to Latimer a dark and 
cheerless prospect, was the solemn promise made by 
Henry in the conference ‘that he would cause the New 
Testament to be faithfully and purely translated into the 
English tongue, that it might be freely given to the people, 
when he saw their manner and behaviour convenient to 
receive the same.’ The promise, we may hope, was made 
in sincerity, and not merely as a pretext to gain time ; it is 


® ‘Preacher’s Declaration,’ from Warham’s Register. 
2 These were (1) Mammon, (2) Obedience, (3) Matrimony. 


104 From 1526 to 1531 


certain, however, that for years no active steps were ever 
taken to fulfil it, and England owes her Bible not to the 


‘> condescension of a king, but to the noble energy of the 


martyred Tindale. 

It is highly probable that Latimer spent the summer of 
1530 in London. According to Foxe, he resided with 
Butts, the Royal physician, and preached frequently in 
London. The principles of the Reformation reckoned 
more adherents in the metropolis than in any other part 
of the kingdom: several of his University friends had 
been promoted to benefices there, and would, of course, 
gladly allow Latimer to officiate in their parishes ; and the 
fact of the See being vacant during the greater part of the 
year was unquestionably favourable to the labours of the 
reformed preacher. Tunstal, a comparatively mild and 
temperate prelate, had been translated to Durham, and 
the violent and vindictive Stokesley, the Bishop-elect, was 
abroad till the close of the year. Latimer and his friends, 
therefore, were allowed to preach unmolested ; and sub- 
sequent investigation showed that their labours were not 
in vain—that their sermons had led not a few to find in 
Christ the true source of peace and life. 

In September it may be conjectured (for the reason 
given below, that he returned once again, for the last time, 
to Cambridge, receiving before he set out a Royal gift, in 
payment of the expenses of his journey to London. The 
nature of the entry, specialising Latimer alone, among all 
the Cambridge delegates, is a significant proof of the 
important position he had already reached in public 
estimation :— 

‘Sep. 18. Paied to Maister Ffoxe for 
that he layed oute to Maister Latymer and 
other scolars of Cambridge for their costs 
from Cambridge to London, and fro thens 
to Cambridge agen... ae He oe VEE ne 


t7,e., £120 of our money ; Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII, 


Wolsey’s Fall 105 


To this last visit of Latimer to Cambridge may be 
referred most appropriately an incident recorded by 
Strype. The grand occurrence of the day was the fall 
of the great Cardinal, who was arrested in the beginning 
of November on the charge of high treason. And it was 
not forgotten that Latimer’s permission to officiate in 
England, in spite of the prohibition of his diocesan, had 
been granted by Wolsey, in the plenitude of his illegal 
prerogative as Papal Legate; and the enemies of the 
Reformer probably hoped that at length the troublesome 
preacher might be effectually silenced. Latimer had no 
such apprehensions. ‘ Ye think that my licence decayeth 
with my Lord Cardinal’s temporal fall,’ he exclaimed in 
one of his sermons from the University pulpit, ‘ but I take 
it nothing so. For he being, I trust, reconciled to God 
from his pomp and vanities, I now set more by his licence 
than ever I did before, when he was in his most felicity.’ * 

The fall of Wolsey was, indeed, an era in the history of 
the Church of England, and must have filled the minds of 
the adherents of the old religion with melancholy fore- 
bodings of coming ruin. The Cardinal had not been very 
popular among the clergy ; he had even been accused of 
remissness in the persecution of heretics, still Churchmen 
could not but feel the insecurity of their position when 
Wolsey had fallen, and could not but fear that, deprived of 
his powerful aid, they were less likely than ever to check 
the growth of those Reformed opinions, which seemed on 
the increase all around. Wolsey himself had begun to feel 
alarmed at the great progress of the Reformed doctrines 
in England, and his last dying charge was intended to 
rouse Henry to more vigour in repressing them. ‘Master 
Kingston,’ said he, in words that have become immortal, 
‘I see the matter against me howit is framed ; but if I had 
served my God as diligently as I have done the King, He would 
not have given me over in my grey hairs. I pray you with all 

* Strype, Ecc. Mem., II. vol. i. p. 368. 


106 From 1526 to 1531 


my heart to have me most humbly commended unto his 
royal majesty. And say, furthermore, that I request His 
Grace, in God’s name, that he have a vigilant eye to 
depress this new sect of Lutherans, that it do not increase 
within his dominions through his negligence, in such a sort 
as that he should be fain at length to put harness on his 
back to subdue them.’ 

If anything were wanted to ‘point a moral’ of the folly 
of human ambition, it might be found in the career of 
Wolsey.? Raised by his energy and the favour of his 
sovereign to a prouder eminence of dignity and power than 
any English subject has ever occupied, he had been, in one 
short year, deprived of his wealth, and state, and authority; 
and in all probability only escaped the scaffold by his sudden 
death (not without suspicion of violence) at Leicester 
Abbey. No monument marks the resting-place of this 
most magnificent of Englishmen ; the mouldering remains 
of the monastery that overshadow his unknown and 
unhonoured tomb, are, perhaps, the most appropriate 
memorial of the mighty Churchman, with whose fall the 
ecclesiastical supremacy of a thousand years passed into 
ruin. Wolsey, sleeping not in ‘dull, cold marble,’ as he 
anticipated, but in an undistinguished corner of a dis- 
mantled abbey—the history of England records no event 
more worthy of being carefully pondered. 

It would be beyond the scope of this biography to 
discuss the character and policy of the great Cardinal. 
He had his faults undoubtedly, grave and serious in a 
statesman, whose voice directed the counsels of the nation; 
still more so in a prelate of the Church, whose life should 
have been moulded by high religious principles. The 
Reformers, however, had soon abundant reason to regret 
the transference of authority from the lenient sway of 


1 Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey. 
2See Johnson’s Vanity of Human Wishes, and, better still, 
Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. 


An Appeal to Henry 107 


Wolsey to the relentless severity of Stokesley, and the 
vindictive cruelty of the philosophic More. No great 
statesman of Henry’s reign had his hands so free from the 
stains of bloodshed ; and whatever may have been his 
private vices and his public errors, the biographer of 
Latimer, at all events, is bound by all the obligations of 
gratitude to let ‘his faults lie gently on him.’ 

While Wolsey was on his last journey from York, 
Latimer was engaged in writing his noble letter to Henry, 
in favour of the free circulation of Holy Scriptures in the 
English tongue. This he looked upon as one of the most 
important steps towards a reformation of religion; and he 
had hoped, with the other English Reformers, that some 
effort would be made to fulfil the promise, made in the 
royal proclamation, of a new translation which might be 
freely circulated in England; but his expectations were 
disappointed, and there seemed no resource but in an 
appeal to the conscience of Henry. And never was the 
King more faithfully reminded of the awful responsibilities 
of his office. The letter is too long to be here transcribed 
in full, but the following extracts sufficiently indicate its 
character and style :— 

‘The holy doctor, St. Augustine, saith, that he which 
for fear of any power hideth the truth, provoketh the 
wrath of God to come upon him, for he feareth men more 
than God. And the holy man, St. John Chrysostom, saith 
that he is not only a traitor to the truth, which openly for 
truth teaches a lie, but he also which doth not freely pro- 
nounce and show the truth which he knoweth. These 
sentences, most redoubted King, when I read now of late, 
and marked them earnestly in the inward parts of mine 
heart, they made me sore afraid, troubled, and vexed me 
grievously in my conscience, and at the last drove me to this 
strait, that either I must show forth such things as I have 
read and learned in Scripture, or else be of that sort that 
provoke the wrath of God upon them, and be traitors unto 


108 From 1526 to 1531 


the truth. . . Alas! how little do men regard those sharp 
sayings of these two holy men, and how little do they fear 
the terrible judgment of Almighty God! And specially 
they which boast themselves to be guides and captains 
unto others, and challenge unto themselves the knowledge 
of holy Scripture, yet will neither show the truth them- 
selves (as they be bound), neither suffer them that would. 
. .. And they’ [7.e., the bishops and clergy] ‘will, as 
much as in them lieth, debar, not only the Word of God 
which David calleth ‘a light to direct,” and show every 
man how to order his affections and lusts according to the 
commandments of God, but also by their subtle wiliness 
they instruct, move, and provoke in a manner all kings in 
Christendom, to aid, succour, and help them in this their 
mischief. And especially in this your realm they have so 
blinded your liege people and subjects with their laws, 
customs, ceremonies, and barbarous glosses, and punished 
them with cursings, excommunications, and other corrup- 
tions (corrections I would say). And now, at the last, 
when they see that they cannot prevail against the 
open truth (which the more it is persecuted, the more it 
increaseth by their tyranny) they have made it treason to 
your noble Grace to have the Scripture in English. 

“JT beseech your Grace to pardon me a while, and — 
patiently to hear me a word or two ; yea, though it be so 
that, as concerning your high majesty and regal power 
whereunto Almighty God hath called your Grace, there is 
as great difference between you and me, as between God 
and man : for you be here to me and to all your subjects 
in God’s stead, to defend, aid, and succour us in our right ; 
and so I should tremble and quake to speak to your Grace. 
But, again, as concerning that you be a mortal man, in 
danger of sin, having in you the corrupt nature of Adam, 
in the which all we be both conceived and born; so have 
you no less need of the merits of Christ’s passion for your 
salvation, than I and other of your subjects have, which be 


Plain Speaking 109 


all members of the mystical body of Christ. And, although 
you be a higher member, yet you must not disdain the 
lesser. . . . This, most gracious King, when I considered, 
and also your favourable and gentle nature, I was bold to 
write this rude, homely, and simple letter unto your Grace, 
trusting that you will accept my true and faithful mind even 
it is.’ 

Latimer then proceeds to direct Henry’s attention to— 

‘“The life and process of our Saviour Christ and His 
apostles, in preaching and setting forth the Gospel,” and to 
“the words of Christ,” in order that by diligently marking 
these, the King might know who were, “ the true followers 
of Christ and teachers of His Gospel, and who were not.” 
Christ was poor ; how then could those be followers of His, 
who, while, “they professed wilful poverty, yet had lords’ 
and kings’ riches ?” Yea, rather than lose one jot of that 
which they have, they will set debate between king and 
king, realm and realm, yea, between the king and his 
subjects, and cause rebellion against the temporal power, 
to the which our Saviour Christ Himself obeyed and paid 
tribute ; yea, they will curse and ban, as much as in them 
lieth, even into the deep pit of hell, all that gainsay their 
appetite, whereby they think their goods, promotions, or 
dignities, should decay. 

“Your Grace may see what means and craft the spirit- 
ualty (as they will be called) imagine, to break and with- 
stand the Acts which were made in your Grace’s last 
Parliament, against their superfluities. Wherefore they that 
do thus your Grace may know them not to be true followers 
of Christ. And although I named the spiritualty to be 
corrupt with this unchristain ambition, yet I mean not all 
to be faulty therein, for there be some good of them ; 
neither would I that your Grace should take away the 
goods due to the Church, but take away all evil persons 
from the goods, and set better in their stead. 

‘Another most evident token that our Saviour Jesus 


IIO From 1526 to 1531 


Christ would that His Gospel and the preachers of it 
should be known by, is, that it should be despised among 
worldly-wise men, and that they should repute it but fool- 
ishness and deceivable doctrine ; and the true preachers 
should be persecuted and hated, and driven from town to 
town, yea, and at the last, lose both goods and life. . . . 
Therefore, wherever you see persecution, there is the 
Gospel, and there is the truth ; and they that do persecute, 
be void and without all truth, not caring for the clear light 
which ‘is come into the world, and which shall utter and 
show forth every man’s works.’ And they whose works be 
naught, dare not come to this light, but go about to stop it 
and hinder it, letting as much as they may, that the Holy 
Scriptures should not be read in our mother tongue, saying 
that it would cause heresy and insurrection ; and so they 
persuade, at the least way they would fain persuade, your 
Grace to keep it back. . . . But asconcerning this matter, 
other men’ [especially Tindale] ‘have showed your 
Grace their minds, how necessary it is to have the 
Scripture in English. The which thing also your Grace hath 
promised by your last proclamation : the which promise I 
pray God that your gracious Highness may shortly perform 
even to-day, before to-morrow. Nor let the wickedness 

of these worldly men detain you from your godly purpose 
"and promise. 

‘Therefore, good King, seeing that our Saviour Christ 
hath sent His servants—that is to say, His true preachers— 
and His own word also, to comfort our weak and sick souls, 
let not these worldly men make your Grace believe that 
they will cause insurrections and heresies, and such mis- 
chiefs as they imagine of their own mad brains, less that 
He be avenged upon you and your realm, as He hath ever 
been avenged upon them which have obstinately withstood 
and gainsaid His word. Peradventure, they will lay this 
against me, and say that experience doth show, how that 
such men as call themselves followers of the Gospel regard 


A Warning III 


not your Grace’s commandment, neither set by your pro- 
clamation ; and so they will not regard or esteem other your 
Grace’s laws. But this is but a crafty persuasion. For as 
concerning your last proclamation, prohibiting such books, 
the very true cause of it and chief counsellors, were they, 
whose evil living and cloaked hypocrisy these books uttered 
and disclosed. And, howbeit, that there were three or four 
that would have had the Scripture to go forth in English,’ 
[so that the assertion in the proclamation that all were 
opposed to this, is a manifest falsehood], ‘ yet it happened 
there, as it is evermore seen, that the most part overcometh 
the better. And so it might be that these men’ [the 
Reformers] ‘did not take this proclamation as yours, but 
as theirs, [i.e., the majority’s, More, and Gardiner, and 
Tunstal, and their friends], ‘set forth in your name, as 
they have done many times before, which hath put your 
realm in great hindrance and trouble, and brought it in 
_ great penury. For what marvel is it, that they, being so 
nigh of your counsel and so familiar with your lords, 
should provoke both your Grace and them to prohibit 
these books, which before by their own authority have 
forbidden the New Testament, under pain of everlasting 
damnation? For such is their manner, to send a thousand 
men to hell, ere they send one to God. 

‘And take heed whose counsels your Grace doth take in 
this matter, that you may do that God commandeth, and 
not that seemeth good in your own sight without the 
Word of God ; that your Grace may be found acceptable 
in His sight, and one of the members of His Church ; and, 
according to the office that He hath called your Grace 
unto, you may be found a faithful minister of His gifts, and 
not a defender of His faith: for He will not have it 
defended by man or man’s power, but by His word only, 
by the which He hath evermore defended it, and that bya 
way far above man’s power or reason, as all the stories of 
the Bible make mention. 


112 From 1526 to 1531 


‘Wherefore, gracious King, remember yourself ; have 
pity upon your soul ; and think that the day is even at 
hand when you shall give account of your office, and of 
the blood which hath been shed with your sword. In the 
which day that your Grace may stand stedfastly, and not 
be ashamed, but be clear and ready in your reckoning, and 
to have (as they say) your guietus est sealed with the blood 
of our Saviour Christ, which only serveth at that day, is 
my daily prayer to Him that suffered death for our sins, — 
which also prayeth to His Father for grace for us con- 
tinually, to whom be all honour and praise for ever ! 
Amen. The Spirit of God preserve your Grace! Anno 
Domini 1530, 1 die Decembris.” ? 

No nobler letter exists in the whole wide compass of 
English literature ; ‘it is,’ Froude truly says, ‘an address 
of almost unexampled grandeur’; and those who have 
allowed themselves to be deluded by the vague assertions 
of ignorant writers, into the belief that Latimer was a mere 
scurrilous polemic who rose to dignity by pandering to the 
vices of the King, must here perceive how utterly they have 
been mistaken. The letter, indeed, is almost equally 
honourable to Henry and to Latimer: for if we admire 
the preacher who so faithfully discharged his duty, and so 
honestly spoke the truth, we cannot refuse to admire the — 
sovereign also, who with all his imperious will, was yet 
courteous and magnanimous enough to listen to such 
admonitions as are too seldom whispered in Courts. The 
step which Latimer counselled, Henry was not yet pre- 
pared to take ; a few years more were yet to elapse before 
the King should grant to all his subjects free liberty to 
read the Word of God in their native tongue ; and then ~ 
(such was the wonderful ‘vengeance’ of Providence) it — 
was not any new translation prepared by the Churchmen — 

* Latimers Remains, pp. 297-309, from Foxe. There are many j 
manuscript copies of the letter, a proof of its oe Lg erp’ In 


one volume of the State Papers (Chapter House, A. I. 13), are two ; 
copies nearly complete. 


Tired of Court Life 113 


of England, that received the royal sanction, but the very 
version of Tindale which it had been so often declared 
penal to possess. Although, therefore, we cannot trace 
any immediate results of this eloquent letter, its pleading 
was not lost ; and it deserves to be mentioned to Henry’s 
honour, that so far from taking offence at Latimer’s honest 
warnings, he soon after made him one of the royal 
chaplains. This was a noble compliment to the preacher’s 
faithful zeal ; and it is a better panegyric on the character of 
the monarch than the most laboured defence of his admirers. 

Though thus assured of the favour and esteem of his 
sovereign, Latimer was tired of Court life. Of weakly 

constitution and simple tastes, he longed for repose, and 

wished for some respite from Court intrigues and endless 
University squabbles. He determined, therefore, to retire 
to some quiet country living. Through the influence of 
Cromwell and Butts, a benefice was speedily procured for 
him; and in spite of their remonstrances and urgent 
entreaties, he left London to reside in his parish. On 
January 14, 1531, he was, in the customary manner, insti- 
tuted into the rectory of West Kington, in the county of 
Wilts and diocese of Salisbury. The Bishop, who was no 
other than the Cardinal Campeggio, was non-resident— 
had, indeed, never been in his diocese, and had only 
visited England as one of the Legates to preside in the 
trial of Henry’s divorce; and in his absence the diocese 
was administered by the Vicar-General, Richard Hiley, 
who instituted Latimer, and whom we shall meet again in 
the course of this biography. The institution is duly entered 
in the Register of the diocese of Salisbury. * 

* Anno Domini, 1530 (#.¢., 1531), quarto-decimo die mensis Januarii, 
Magister Ricardus Hiley, Vicarius Generalis, etc. etc.; ecclesiam 
parochialem de West Kington, in Archidiaconatu Wilts, Sarum dioc. 
per mortem Dom. Will. Dorodyng, ultimi Rectoris ejusdem vacantem, 
atque ad collationem Dom. Laurentii Sarum Episcopi, pleno jure 
spectantem, Magistro Hugoni Latymer, Presbytero, Sanctz Theologiz 


Baccalaureo, contulit, ac ipsum Rectorem dictz ecclesiz instituit, etc ’ 
—Campeggio Register, fol. 24. 


CHAPTER IV 


LATIMER AT WEST KINGTON 


(1531-1535) 


EST KINGTON,?* the new field of labour to 

which Latimer had removed, is a little village, 
a very inaccessible out-of-the-way place, on the con- 
fines of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, some fourteen 
miles from Bristol, then the great commercial metro- 
polis of the West of England. After the excitement 
of Court life, after the fatigue of his labours in London 
and the bitter controversies of Cambridge, his ‘little 
cure,’ as he affectionately styles it, must have seemed to 
promise a happy retreat where he might devote himself 
calmly and peacefully to the simple duties of his sacred 
office. Even at present the population of the parish 
numbers only a very few hundreds; and in Latimer’s 
time it was probably less rather than greater. Of course 


there was the ordinary work of a country parish to per- — 


form ; his ‘little bishopric’ had its sick folks to be visited, 


its ignofance to be instructed, its ‘matrimonies’ and other — 


duties to be transacted ; and Latimer, when he found so ~ 
much to be done in a neal cure, often wondered ‘how — 


men could go quietly to bed, who had great cures and 
many, and yet, peradventure, were in none of them at 
all’? Still, these labours were but slight in comparison 


* Or West Keynton, pronounced Kineton. 
? Letter to Baynton. Remains, p. 350. 
114 


7 


| 


Latimer’s New Parish 115 


with the toils and vexations of the last seven years ; and 
to Latimer’s over-strained mind, and over-exerted bodily 
frame, the retirement of West Kington must have brought 
refreshing and invigorating rest. 

His new parish, in its quiet rural repose, must have 
reminded him of his native parish of Thurcastone ; and, 
singularly enough, there were some connecting links 
between the two. Within half-a-mile of his rectory was 
the famous Roman Fossway, which led through Gloucester 
and Warwick, and past his father’s farm at Thurcastone, to 
Lincoln ; and as he walked along its narrow path, and 
watched its straight arrow-like course across the Downs, 
his thoughts would naturally be attracted towards his 
distant home, and his childhood, and the interesting and 
wonderful career through which God had led him to his 
present position. At the time of Latimer’s incumbency, 
moreover, it happened that the manor of West Kington 
had descended in part to the same family of Grey, Marquis 
of Dorset, who were lords of the manor of Thurcastone, 
and to whom, in all probability, old Hugh Latimer paid 
his rent ‘of three or four pound’ for his farm. A family 
of Latimers also had been established in Wiltshire, whose 
arms, the same as those of the Leicestershire Latimers, 
_ from whom they were an offshoot, are still conspicuous in 
some of the village churches ; and it was a Latimer, parson 
of the neighbouring parish of Leigh Delamere, that gave the 
first rudiments of instruction to the renowned philosopher, 
Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury. The memory of Latimer 
is still fresh in his country charge, and the parishioners are 
not a little proud of the illustrious rector who once pre- 
sided over them. ‘In the walk at the Parsonage house 
_ isa little scrubbed hollow oak called Latimer’s oak, where 
| he used to sit..* The Church, a Greek cross in form, 
_ dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and substantially the same 


* See, for all particulars, Aubrey’s Collections, enlarged and revised 
by Jackson. 


116 Latimer at West Kington 


in which Latimer used to officiate, has been reverently 
and carefully restored ; his pulpit is still preserved in it, 
and a stained-glass window, erected some twelve years ago, 
testifies to the veneration still entertained for the Reformer’s 
memory. 

The arrival of a preacher such as Latimer, whose repu- 
tation had already travelled over England, would excite no 
small ferment in a quiet neighbourhood like West Kington. 
The orthodox priests around would, of course, feel alarmed 
lest this great teacher of heresy should corrupt the minds 
of their flocks ; and the few, chiefly citizens of Bristol, who 
had embraced the doctrines of the Reformers, would be 
elated with the prospect of hearing that voice, whose bold- 
ness and eloquence had delighted the learned and the great. 
That the local excitement should find vent in discussions 
and disturbances was only what might have been antici- 
pated. It was scarcely possible for Latimer to preach the 
truth without, either directly or by implication, condemning 
much of what was taught and practised around him; and 
however much he might long for quiet and rest, he was 
sure to find antagonists, and to be involved as before in 
debate and controversy. But, before entering upon the 
details of his life in West Kington, it will be necessary to 
revert to the general history of the progress of the 
Reformation in England. 

The long futile negotiations for a divorce had roused the 
spirit of Henry ; he had been bearded in his own kingdom 
by the emissaries of a foreign ecclesiastic, and he was 
determined to be supreme in England. Wolsey felt the 
first burst of his indignation, but the King was not satished 
with the Cardinal’s fall. Nothing, indeed, was further from 
his intention than to take any steps that might seem to 
favour the Reformed opinions, but he was, at the same 
time, resolved that the controversy between the Church 
and the Throne, which had been so often raised, should be 
settled for ever ; the clergy must be taught that he and not 


Convocation in Trouble 117 


the Pope was their master. Cromwell is said to have sug- 
gested to him the ingenious policy by which this resolution 
might be accomplished. One step had already been taken 
in the Parliament of 1529, and Henry had ascertained the 
irresolution and weakness of the clergy : by a bold resis- 
tance at that time the clergy might, perhaps, have averted 
the humiliation that was in store for them ; but they had 
been unable to withstand the demands of the Commons, 
and Cromwell judged the time favourable for the next 
great step in his policy. In January, 1531, therefore, when 
Convocation reassembled, Cromwell, armed with the King’s 
signet, boldly entered the assembly, and, seating himself 
among the Bishops, proceeded to unfold to the alarmed 
clergy the unpleasant predicament in which they had 
placed themselves. They, above all men in the king- 
dom, he reminded them, were bound to obey the laws 
and to reverence the authority of the King. Instead of 
this, however, they had not only, contrary to their fealty to 
their sovereign, taken an oath of allegiance to the Pope, 
which was inconsistent with the duty of loyal subjects, 
but they had, in open violation of the laws, recog- 
nised the late Cardinal as Papal Legate. The penalty 
was plain, he added ; they had fallen under the law of 
premunire; all their goods and chattels were forfeited 
to the King, and they were liable to imprisonment at 
discretion ! ? 

-Unquestionably, Henry’s proceeding was ‘extremely 
harsh and unfair’ ;3 the law was practically obsolete ; 
and he had himself fully recognised Wolsey’s legatine 
authority. But this prosecution was the most effectual 
weapon for promoting his purpose ; and it was a righteous 
retribution, which turned the most arrogant exhibition of 
ecclesiastical authority into the most formidable instrument 
for humbling the clergy. Convocation felt its helplessness. 


* See the Oath in Fove, vol. v. p. 6 = ee vol. v. p. 367. 
3 Hallam’s History of Biielanil vol. i, p. 65. 


118 Latimer at West Kington 


Resistance was hopeless. The precedent of Wolsey, who 
had at once acknowledged his guilt and surrendered his 
goods to the King, was fatally ominous. There were even 
signs of insubordination among the lower orders of the 
clerical body: the working clergy refused to assist the 
dignitaries, who alone had reaped the advantage in the 
day of the Church’s glory. They had no alternative but 
submission. They implored the King’s forgiveness, and 
purchased their pardon by promising to pay into the royal 
coffers a subsidy of £144,000—an enormous fine, equal to 
more than two millions of our money. But they had not 
even yet drained the bitter cup, which Cromwell had pre- 
pared for them. In the formal instrument, which assured 
them of the royal pardon, Henry was styled the ‘ protector 
and supreme head of the Church and clergy of England’ 
(ecclesia et cleri Anglicani protector et supremum caput rex 
solus est). 

The clergy were staggered by an acknowledgment which. 
virtually annulled their oath to the Pope, and abolished 
the supremacy of the Holy See. Session after session, 
therefore, the subject was earnestly debated, and various 
proposals were made, by the insertion of limiting and modi- 
fying clauses, so to qualify the phraseology, as to preserve 
the dignity and authority of the Church unimpaired. But 
Henry refused to entertain their proposals ; he ‘ would have 
no tantums,’ he said. At length, on February 11, amidst 
the gloomy silence of the prelates, Warham, the Arch- 
bishop, declared that all consented to recognise Henry as 
‘sole protector, only sovereign Lord, and also, as far as by 
the law of Christ is lawful, supreme head of the English 
Church.’* Bishop Fisher is said to have devised the 
one qualifying clause in this declaration, which, however, 
as he afterwards found to his cost, in no way limited 


* The words are worth recording: ‘Ecclesiz et cleri Anglicani 
singularem protectorem, unicum et supremum dominum, et quantum 
per Christi legem licet, etiam supremum caput ipsius agnoscimus.’ 


Heresy-Hunting 119 


Henry’s supreme authority over the English Church. The 
clergy were right in standing to the last against the 
declaration which Henry wished to exact from them, 
for it was the citadel of the whole ecclesiastical system. 
From the moment it was declared to be the law of 
England, that the voice of the people speaking through _ 
parliament or through the sovereign was to be supreme, 
the authority of Rome was gone. Everysubsequent step in 
the English Reformation was simply a corollary from this 
great fundamental position. 

This humiliating business over, Convocation turned to the 
more congenial occupation of prosecuting those heretics 
who had been most conspicuous in opposing the doctrinal 
teaching of the Church. A Gloucestershire squire, William 
Tracy? had recently died, and when his will was proved in 
the Archbishop’s Court, it was found redolent with what 
was deemed the most dangerous heresy. The testator 
rested his whole hope of salvation on the mediation of 
Christ, repudiating entirely the intercession of any other 
mediators ; and he had expressly forbidden the giving of 
any of his property to say masses for the benefit of his 
departed soul. ‘Tracy himself had fortunately passed 
beyond the jurisdiction of Convocation, but, lest others 
should follow such an ‘impious and heretical’ example, 
it was ordered, after many debates, that his dead body 
should be exhumed, and ignominiously thrown out of con- 
secrated ground. This foolish sentence, a mere impotent 
ebullition of spite, was duly executed by Dr. Parker, ? the 
Chancellor of the diocese of Worcester, who caused the 
dead body to be dug out of the grave and publicly 
burned, for which a few years later, when the tables 


* Of Dodington, in Gloucestershire, near Tewkesbury, a friend of 
Tindale’s, who says he was ‘better seen in the works of St. Augustine 
than any doctor he had ever known in England.’ See his Exposition 
of Tracy’s Testament. 

? The same, it is believed, who caused Tindale to be brought before 
him, and rated him like a dog. 


120 Latimer at West Kington 


were turned, he was deprived of his Chancellorship and 
heavily fined. * 

Latimer’s preaching was also brought under the notice 
of Convocation. Stokesley, the new Bishop of London, 
had now returned from the Continent, and assumed the 
administration of his diocese; and was determined to 
signalise his episcopate by unsparing zeal in extirpating 
heresy. On March 3, 1531, as soon as the question of the 
Royal Supremacy had been settled, he proposed to the 
Convocation articles of accusation against Latimer, Crome, 
and Bilney, for heretical preaching within the diocese of 
London.?, The subject was resumed on March 18, but 
some difficulty apparently prevented its being further 
prosecuted at the time, and the matter was deferred to a 
future opportunity. Latimer and Bilney were, indeed, 
beyond Stokesley’s reach; but the vindictive prelate, 
though disappointed for the time, resolved to watch 
for a favourable occasion of proceeding against them. 
Crome, however, as a London incumbent, was at hand, 
and was at once placed on his trial; and, with the same 
unhappy weakness which we have so often had to con- 
demn in the leaders of the Reformation, he retracted his 
opinions, signed a series of propositions, affirming the 
common teaching of the Church ; and publicly preached 
in favour of the doctrines which he had controverted.3 
It was a lamentable exhibition of vacillation, almost of 
apostasy ; and Crome attempted to salve his conscience, 
and maintain his integrity, by the help of some ingenious ~ 
and almost equivocal explanations ; but the pious laity, 


t His offence was that he had gone beyond his orders, which were 
merely to exhume the body. He was fined £40, or £600 of our money. 
—Stokesley’s Register, fol. 72. 

2 Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 725. 

3 See the articles in Townsend's Fove, vol. v. app. xvi., where, how- 
ever, the trial is assigned to March, 1530, erroneously, because 
Stokesley was not in England in March, 1530. Moreover Strype says, 
‘the articles were not subscribed but only registered.’ Ecc. Mem. vol. 
iii, p. 102. 


Latimer and his Neighbours 121 


though shocked, were not deceived. ‘I heard Master 
Crome preach,’ said Bainham, one of Stokesley’s sub- 
sequent victims, ‘and say that he thought there was a 
purgatory after this life, and I thought in my mind that 
the said Master Crome lied and spake against his conscience, 
and there were a hundred more who thought as I did. I 
have also seen the confession of Master Crome in print, 
God wot, a very foolish thing, as I judge.’ The preachers 
had failed in the hour of trial and danger ; the laity were 
about to give them an example of constancy and fortitude. 

Latimer meanwhile had, as might have been anticipated, 
been drawn into a hot controversy with some of the neigh- 
bouring clergy. He had been preaching in Marshfield, a 
village some four miles from West Kington, and, exas- 
perated possibly by Stokesley’s violence, he had con- 
demned the conduct of the rulers of the Church in the 
strongest terms. His audience was no doubt numerous, 
and the most exaggerated versions of his sermons were 
soon spread through the country to the alarm and horror 
of the easy-going parish priests of the neighbourhood. 
He had selected as his text a favourite verse from the 
Gospel of St. John: ‘All that ever came before Me were 
thieves and robbers’; and, according to the popular 
report of his words, he had roundly asserted that all 
bishops, all popes, all rectors, all vicars, were thieves and 
robbers, and that all the hemp in England would not 
suffice to hang these clerical delinquents ; he had declared. 
that Peter had no supremacy over the other apostles, but ' 
that all Christians were priests ; and had maintained that | 
baptism was of no avail unless men lived in accordance 
with their Christian profession. As usual, the people had 
considerably misinterpreted the preacher’s meaning. 
Latimer, it must be confessed, had not yet imbibed the 
spirit of the Protestant theology sufficiently to make such 
assertions as were ascribed to him; still the sermon was 


Foxe, vol. iv. p. 697. 


122 Latimer at West Kington 


a bold one, and the neighbouring priests looked upon it 
as a sort of challenge to them. It formed the theme of 
their conversation when they met, and many a hard saying 
and bitter joke were vented against the great heretical 
preacher at the tables of the clergy. 

One of them, William Sherwood, in the parish of 
Derham, adjoining West Kington, bolder than the rest, 
and unable to restrain his indignation, wrote to Latimer a 
long letter of expostulation, on what he is pleased to style 
his ‘insane satire’ at Marshfield. He had already, ‘ over 
his wine,’* or perhaps at the alehouse, ‘which,’ says 
Tindale, speaking of the priests of that neighbourhood, 
‘is their preaching-place,’ refuted and exposed the 
Reformer to his own satisfaction, and he now felt em- 
boldened to come forward as the champion of the Church 
against heretics. His letter is a mixture of assumed 
courtesy and offensive rudeness, which could not fail to 
rouse Latimer’s indignation. 

‘I know you will not be offended at me,’ thus he began, 
‘if I venture to give youalittle Christian admonition about 
that unchristian sermon, or rather mad satire, of yours, 
lately preached at Marshfield. Christ said, “ He that 
entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth 
up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber,” 
whereas you, who cannot search hearts, declared that all 
bishops, popes, rectors (all except yourself and some more 
of your class, I suppose), were thieves and robbers, for 
hanging whom, as you said in an audacious and impious 
hyperbole, the whole hemp of England would not suffice. 
Ah! my brother, we should not judge rashly before the 
time. St. Paul, nay Christ Himself, warns us not to judge 
others. Alas! alas! Latimer, what madness transported 
you to declare falsely that there were more thieves than 
shepherds in Christ’s Church? Far different was the 
opinion of the famous St. Cyprian, etc. You said also 


* ‘Inter pocula, says Latimer, in his reply. 


aR Erin 


The Sherwood Controversy 123 


that every one who with Peter confesses Christ to be the 
Son of the living God, was a Peter, as if the passage 
belonged no more to Peter, the supreme Vicar of Christ 
on earth, than to any Christian whatever ; the very error 
of the Lutherans, who maintain that all Christians are 
priests! a heresy long ago condemned by the Church. 
And even more than this, you said that a baptized man 
who followed the lusts of the flesh was no more a Christian 
than a Jew or a Turk, a horrible doctrine worthy only of 
such heretics as Zwingle and Ecolampadius.’* 

The rest of the letter is in the same vein, and need not 
be quoted at length. Latimer answered in a somewhat 
rough and indignant mood ; for Sherwood, while assuming 
an air of courtesy and politeness, had written with great 
bitterness, and was endeavouring to excite odium against 
the Reformer by classing him with the great Continental 
heresiarchs, whose opinions Latimer as yet by no means 
shared. After reproving Sherwood for his insulting and 
calumnious insinuations, he proceeded to refute his oppo- 
nent’s arguments :— 

‘Granted that I said all popes, bishops, and rectors, who 
enter not by the door, but climb up some other way, are 
thieves and robbers, in so saying I was not judging the 
persons, but their manner of entrance, as Christ Himself 
was. And from this assertion you, in your wisdom, infer 
that all popes, bishops, and rectors are thieves, at least 
that I said so. Is that a fair inference? Might I not 
retort upon you the warning of St. Paul and of Christ, not 
to judge? How is it, pray, that when I say all who enter 
not by the door are thieves, I seem to you to say abso- 
lutely that all are thieves, unless perhaps almost all seem 
to you to climb up some other way, and not to enter in by 
the door? If this be your opinion, at least forbear to say 
what you think, if you are wise (and you are quite wise 
enough), for you must see what danger you would bring 


* The original, in Latin, is in Foxe, vol. vii. p. 480. 


124 Latimer at West Kington 


upon yourself by such an assertion. Neither did I say 
anything derogatory of the primacy of Peter, for that 
subject was not mentioned by me; on the contrary, I 
simply reminded my hearers that the Church of Christ 
was founded on a rock, not on the sand; and warned 
them that they should not trust too much in a dead faith, 
in which case they would perish and would be shamefully 
overcome by the gates of hell ; but should show forth 
their faith by their works, and thus at length obtain ever- 
lasting life. You are manifestly one of those who are 
more ready to defend the primacy of Peter, even when 
there is no occasion, than to renew the blessed confession 
of Peter in suitable works of holiness. Finally, I affirm 
that a Christian, that is, a person received by baptism into 
the number of Christians, if he live not according to his 
profession, but yield himself up to the lusts of the flesh, 
is no more a Christian as touching the inheriting of eternal 
life which is promised to Christ’s people, than a Jew ora 
Turk ; yea, rather his condition at the last day will be 
worse than the others. We shall not be placed amongst 
Christ’s sheep at the right hand if, while professing Christ, 
we have not lived a life worthy of Christ, but have dis- 
graced our profession by wicked living. It is the duty of 
a preacher to exhort his hearers to be Christians after 
such a manner, that suffering here with Christ they may 
reign with Him in heaven : and to teach them that to be 
a Christian after any other fashion is not to be a Christian 
at all. So speak the Scriptures, and the interpreters of | 
the Scriptures, though you may call it heretical. The 
covetous man, the fornicator, the murderer, you say, is a 
Catholic and a servant of Christ. For the humour of the 
thing I will carry on the jest with you. A fornicator, you 
say, is a‘servant of Christ ; but he is also a servant of sin 
and of the devil ; therefore the same man can serve two 
masters ; which Christ was not aware of. And if dead 
faith makes a Catholic, the very--devils belong to the 


Sherwood’s Retreat 125 


Catholic Church ; since according to James, ‘“ they believe 
and tremble.” If your conversation is not milder than 
your writings, I hope to come in contact with neither ; 
but may all bitterness and pride and anger and clamour 
and evil speaking be taken from you with all malice! 
Yet neither by words nor by writing will you annoy me. 
I fancy you would not wish for such hearers as you have 
shown yourself to be. May God make you more charit- 
able, or keep you as far as possible from my preaching !’ 

Sherwood, who had probably been the great oracle of 
the neighbourhood previous to Latimer’s arrival, was 
determined to have the last word in the controversy, and 
he ventured on a rejoinder in the somewhat more cautious 
vein of a man who was anxious to quit the field without 
dishonour. He had received Latimer’s letter, he said, and 
read it, though it deserved only to be burned. Hedenied 
that he had said anything bitter against Latimer, or had 
reviled him over his cups ; all that he had done was, when 
some of Latimer’s hearers told him that the preacher had 
spoken disrespectfully of the Ave Mary, to warn them 
against the doctrines of such heretical teachers. Was 
this abusing Latimer? Was it not rather taking pious 
precautions for the benefit of his people? Far be it from 
him to exhibit any anger; he had learned from Christ to 
love even his enemies, much more, then, must he love a 
brother and fellow-servant of the same God. As to 
Latimer’s defence and explanations of his doctrines, he 
- accepted them gladly ; they had, indeed, been very differ- 
ently reported to him by those who were present, but as 
they were now explained, they were sound and Catholic, 
and he had nothing to say against them. 

In fact, it is apparent from his second letter, that Sher- 
wood had discovered that he had overrated his strength 
when he thus ventured into the arena to measure himself 
with the accomplished disputant against whom the wits of 
Cambridge had contended in vain ; and he was only too 


126 Latimer at West Kington 


glad to be able to retire with any appearance of honour 
from the unequal contest. 

About midsummer of this year (1531) Latimer again 
visited London, solicited probably by his friends Cromwell 
and Butts, who had strongly opposed his resolution to 
reside on his living. Of course he could not escape 
being importuned to preach, for the recollection of his 
eloquence was still fresh, and there were many who longed 
to hear again from his lips words of comfort and life. He 
did preach, accordingly, in Kent, at the instant request of 
the parish priest; but knowing Stokesley’s furious zeal ~ 
against all reformed doctrines, he for some time resolutely 
declined to officiate in London. At last he was prevailed 
upon by the entreaties of some merchants, who showed 
him that there were many very desirous to hear him, ‘who 
had great hunger and thirst of the Word of God, and of 
ghostly doctrine’ ; and he preached in St. Mary Abchurch. 
He had no intention of defying Stokesley’s authority, but 
neither had he any wish to escape notice and evade 
responsibility. He declined twice or thrice to comply 
with the request of the merchants; he showed them that 
he had no licence from the Bishop of the Diocese, but 
only from the University of Cambridge ; and insisted that 
his name should be plainly made known to the incumbent? 
of the church in which he was to preach. Being satished 
that all proper precautions were taken not to practise any 
deception, he at last consented to preach, and was received 
with great courtesy by the parson and curate, who gave 
him the common benediction as he entered the pulpit. 
Notwithstanding all this urgency on the part of the mer- 
chants, however, and the civility on the part of the clergy 
of the church, Latimer was not without the suspicion that 
‘it was a train and trap laid before him, to the intent 


® Perhaps at Ickham, where his friend Edward Isaac, of Well Court, 
resided. See Remains, p. 324. 
2 Thomas Clark was then incumbent. Newcourt’s Repertorium. 


A Bold Sermon 127 


that Stokesley, or some other pertaining to him, should 
have been there to take him in his sermon’ ;? and this 
suspicion incited him to express himself with more bold- 
ness. 

The Epistle, from which he preached, supplied a theme 
admirably suited for the circumstances of the time. ‘Ye 
are not under the law,’ such was the text; and thus the 
preacher began to expound it: ‘ Christians not under the 
law! not subject to the law! Surely this is a dangerous 
saying, if it be not rightly understood, sounding as if 
Christians were at liberty to break the laws. What if 
the adversaries of St. Paul had so understood them, and 
had accused St. Paul before the Bishop of London for 
preaching them? If my lord of London would have 


listened to St. Paul declaring his own opinion of his own 


words, then he should have escaped, and his opponents 
should have been rebuked ; but if he had given sentence 
according to the representations of the accusers, then 
good St. Paul must have borne a fagot on his back, even 
at Paul’s Cross, my lord of London, bishop of the same, 
sitting under the cross. Oh, it had been a goodly sight to 
have seen St. Paul thus!’ Judges, therefore, the preacher 
went on to argue, ought to be careful in proceeding 
against teachers of religion, and should place no reliance 
on the reports of ignorant or dishonest hearers, who 
either misunderstood or misrepresented what had been 
addressed to them. In the rest of his sermon he diverged 
to the topics which he was accustomed on all occasions to 
introduce as of great moment. He warned his hearers 
against the common abuses and superstitions of the day, 
and especially against that fertile source of corruption and 
immorality, the going on pilgrimages. ‘If you will go 
pilgrimages,’ said he, ‘make your pilgrimages to your poor 
neighbours around you.’ He is even said to have spoken 
with disrespect of the ‘Sacrament of the Altar,’ but this is 
* Letters to Baynton, Remains, p. 327. 


128 Latimer at West Kington 


probably only an inference on the part of some hearer 
more advanced in Protestant theology than the preacher ; * 
for Latimer did not till many years later abandon the 
Romish views of the nature of the Sacrament of the Lord’s 
Supper. 

Such a sermon could not but excite Stokesley’s indig- 
nation. He viewed it as personally directed against 
himself, and not without good reason ; for in conjunction 
with Sir Thomas More, he had just entered upon that 
career of violent and even illegal persecution for which 
his episcopate is so infamously notorious. He endeavoured 
to excite Henry’s indignation against Latimer, by repre- 
senting his sermon as a defence of the heretics who were 
under trial, and chiefly of Bilney ; but, apparently, Henry 
refused to listen to Stokesley’s entreaties, for Latimer was 
allowed to return unmolested to his country charge. 

It is just possible, though there is no direct evidence of 
the fact, that on this journey to London, Latimer may, for 
the last time, have conversed with his dear friend and 
spiritual father, Bilney. That gentle Reformer had at 
last come to the resolution that it was his duty, at any risk 
to himself, to preach openly the doctrines which he had 
twice in his weakness ignominiously denied. The reso- 
lution grew up in the secrecy of his own heart, without 
communication with any one; and in the spring of 1531, 
he summoned together the friends that still remained at 
Cambridge, and solemnly took leave of them with the 
affecting words, ‘I must needs go up to Jerusalem.’ 
They saw that remonstrances would be idle, and with 
tears they commended him to the keeping and comfort of 
God. He set out accordingly on his last journey. He 
directed his steps first of all to his native county of 
Norfolk, where he visited the faithful, and preached in the 
fields, confessing and bewailing his former cowardice ; 
assuring his hearers that what he taught was the very 


* See articles against John Tyrrel, Foxe, vol. v. p. 39. 


Bilney Seized 129 


truth of God ; and warning them to beware of following 
his evil example in denying their faith, by listening to the 
timid advice of earthly friends. From Norfolk he pro- 
ceeded southwards, and probably visited London, for, six 
weeks before his arrest, he was seen at Greenwich.t He 
carried about with him copies of Tindale’s New Testa- 
ment, which he distributed wherever he went. 

At length the Bishop of Norwich discovered and seized 
him. He was a relapsed heretic, caught in the very act 
of disseminating heretical books ; and his case was a very 
simple one. A writ for burning him was speedily 
procured from More, who is said to have jocularly 
remarked that in so flagrant an instance the proper course 
would have been ‘to burn him first and procure a writ 
afterwards.’ After a short and summary trial, he was 
condemned, degraded from the priesthood, and handed 
over to the sheriff to be burned. Still his courage did 
not forsake him ; he remained cheerful and serene. On 
the evening before his martyrdom his friends came to 
visit him, and sought to console him with the common- 
places of comfort. ‘The fire might be hot to the body,’ 
they said, ‘ but the Spirit of God would be able to cool it 
to his everlasting refreshing.’ ‘I know by experience,’ © 
Bilney replied, putting his finger into the flame of the 
candle, and holding it there till it was burned to the first 
ioint, ‘I know by experience, that fire, by God’s ordinance, 
is naturally hot ; but yet I am persuaded by God’s Holy 
Word, and by the experience of some spoken of in the 
same, that in the flame they felt no heat, and in the fire 
they felt no consumption. And I constantly believe that 
however the stubble of this my body shall be wasted by 
it, yet my soul and spirit shall be purged thereby : a pain 
for the time, whereon, notwithstanding, followeth joy 
unspeakable. For God Himself has said, “Fear not, for 


* Foxe, vol. v. p. 22. Laurence Staple saw him at Greenwich six 
weeks before his arrest ; he was arrested early in August. 


9 


130 Latimer at West Kington 


I have redeemed thee, and called thee by thy name, thou 
art Mine ; when thou passest through the waters, I will 
be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not 
overflow thee ; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt 
not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”’ 
The words had often been the stay of Bilney in his 
retirement ; and his Bible, still preserved in the library of 
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, has the passage 
marked with a pen in the margin, an interesting and 
affecting memorial of the gentle martyr. 

Next morning, August 19th, he was led to the Lollards’ 
Pit, a capacious hollow, near the gate of the city of 
Norwich, admirably adapted to afford to the assembled 
crowds a full view of the terrible spectacle. It was a 
boisterous day ; and the wind blew the blaze away from 
Bilney, who was miserably scorched before the flames 
were strong enough to destroy him. Even in that 
dreadful hour, however, the martyr did not lose his 
constancy: in the agony of death, while he beat upon 
his breast in the paroxysms of pain, he was overheard by 
the bystanders commending his soul in faith to the 
keeping of the Divine Master, whom he thus glorified in 
the flames. Reports were, indeed, circulated after his 
death that he had again recanted and abjured his faith ; 
but on examination, even before so prejudiced a judge as 
Sir Thomas More, these proved to be unsubstantial and 
little worthy of credit. The priest with whom they 
originated, was an authority by no means removed above 
suspicion ; he was guilty of embezzling charitable funds, 
and was publicly denounced in the council-chamber of 
Norwich, as ‘a liar, not fit to come amongst honest 
men,’? Foxe’s account of the martyrdom, which has 


* Called ‘John, the Curate of Norwich,’ in the State Papers. 

2 These are the words of the Mayor of Norwich. The documents 
are in the State Paper Office, and have been printed by Townsend, 
Foxe, vol. iv. app. 


Bilney’s Character and Work 131 


been followed in this biography, was derived from the 
information of Archbishop Parker, who had come from 
Cambridge to be present at the scene, and whose veracity 


_ few will call in question: and confirmed as it is by the 


depositions of the Mayor of Norwich in the State Paper 
Office, we are sufficiently warranted in dismissing the 
report of Bilney’s abjuration as an unfounded calumny 
against his memory. 

History has hardly done justice to the character of 
Bilney and his important services in promoting the 
Reformation in England. Gentle, timid, and unassuming, 
only his intimate friends knew his great and real worth. 
Like Latimer, he was very slow in abandoning the 
doctrines to which he had been so long accustomed ; but 
even Luther himself did not hold more firmly the great 
truth which had been to Bilney the source of all his 
spiritual life and comfort—the free forgiveness of sins 
through the atonement of Christ. By way of epitaph 
upon this gentle leader of the Reformation, let us listen to 
Latimer’s opinion of him :— 

‘I have known Bilney a great while, and have been his 
ghostly father many a time ; and to say the truth, I have 
known hitherto few such, so prompt and ready to do 
every man good after his power, both friend and foe; 
noisome wittingly to no man ; and towards his enemy so 
charitable, so seeking to reconcile them as he did, I have 
known yet not many ; and to be short, a very simple good 
soul, nothing fit or meet for this wretched world, whose 
blind fashion and miserable state (yea, far from Christ’s 
doctrine) he could as evil bear, and would sorrow, lament, 
and bewail it as much as any man that ever I knew: as 
for his singular learning, as well in Holy Scripture as in 
all other good letters, I will not speak of it. And ifaman 
living so mercifully, so charitably, so patiently, so con- 
tinently, so studiously and virtuously, and killing his old 
Adam (that is to say, mortifying his evil affections and 


132 Latimer at West Kington 


blind motions of his heart) so diligently should die an evil 
death’ (i.e., died a wicked, sinful man, as the clergy in 
general said), ‘there is no more; but “Let him that 
standeth, beware that he fall not”; for if such as he shall 
die evil, what shall become of me, such a wretch as I 
am ?’? 

Bilney was not the only martyr of that furious autumn 
of 1531. Just about the time of his death, Stokesley 
caused a priest, Richard Bayfield, to be seized, and 
confined in his notorious ‘ coal-house,’ in the palace in 
St. Paul’s Churchyard. Bayfield had been exceedingly 
active in circulating prohibited books ;? and great efforts 
were accordingly made to induce him to confess his 
accomplices. He was, it is said, fastened upright to the 
walls of his dungeon, chained round the feet, the neck, 
and the waist, that the misery of this sleepless posture 
might wring the secret from him; but in vain, he was 
resolute, and named no one. All other means having 
failed to shake his constancy, he was, on November 2oth, 
handed over to the secular power, in the usual hypo- 
critical form, ‘requiring in the bowels of Christ that the 
execution of this worthy punishment to be done upon thee 
may be so moderated that there be neither over much 
cruelty, nor too much favourable gentleness ; but that it 
may be to the health and salvation of thy soul, and to the 
extirpation, fear, terror, and conversion of all other 
heretics unto the unity of the Catholic faith’ Stokesley 
was present at the trial, and, according to Foxe, was so 
infuriated at his resolute refusal to incriminate any one, 
that he struck him a violent blow with his crozier on the 
breast, causing him to fall senseless on the pavement. 
As so often happened on such occasions, either from 
carelessness or mistaken kindness on the part of the 


™ Letter to Sir Edward Baynton, Remazns, p. 30. 

2 No fewer than fifty-four works had been distributed by him, 
including the works of Luther, Zwingle, and Melanchthon, besides 
Tindale’s New Testament: see Foxe. 


Tewkesbury’s Sufferings 133 


officials, the fire on the day of martyrdom was not made = 
at first sufficiently strong to consume the unhappy victim. 
Bayfield stood for some time in miserable torture, and his 
left arm was burned and fell from his body, before the 
flames reached any vital part ; but he continued unmoved 

in prayer till life was extinct. 

A fresh victim speedily followed him to the stake. 
John Tewkesbury, a leather-merchant in the City, who 
had abjured under Tunstal, was again apprehended in the 
autumn of 1531. He was subjected to the most barbarous 
ill-usage at the hands of the philosophic Chancellor, who 
had forgotten all the theoretical toleration that he had 
advocated in his earlier days. Tewkesbury was taken to 
More’s residence in Chelsea, and whipped at the famous 
‘Jesus’ Tree,’ or ‘ Tree of Troth,’ in that renowned garden 
where More had been seen walking, with the Sovereign’s 
arm lovingly encircling his neck. Still refusing to recant, 
Tewkesbury was subjected to yet more cruel usage. 
Cords were tied round his head, and strained till the 
blood started from his eyes ; and in defiance of the law, 
he was racked in the Tower till he was almost lame. 


t These accusations of cruelty against More and Stokesley rest, of 
course, mainly on the authority of Foxe; and it is just possible that 
the good martyrologist, writing when the fires of Smithfield were 
scarcely extinguished, may have drawn some of the pictures in too 
dark colours. The cruelty, however, is in keeping with More’s 
ferocious and scurrilous language towards Tindale; and it is certain 
that he permitted his rage against the Reformers to betray him into 
illegal violence. Lord Chancellor Campbell says: ‘It was not till 
More had retired from office that heresy was made high treason, and 
the scaffold flowed with innocent blood’ (Lives of the Chancellors, 
vol. i. p. 548), a vague expression which might be supposed equivalent 
to the quotation from Erasmus he had just cited ; ‘while he was 
chancellor no man was put to death for those pestilent dogmas,’ etc. 

Now More himself not only confesses that while in office he was 
strict in correcting heretics (ha@reticus infestus; says his epitaph), but 
admits that ‘of late there were delivered into the secular hands Sir 
Thomas Hilton, at Maidstone (the stinking martyr), Bilney, at Norwich, 
one at Exeter, one in Lincoln diocese, and in London, Bayfield the 
monk, Tewkesbury the pouchmaker, and Baynham. 

As to the whipping, he says, ‘he had caused such things to be done 
by the officers of the Marshalsea to people guilty of robbery, murder, 


134 Latimer at West Kington 


Terrified by the severity which he had experienced, 
Tewkesbury at last abjured, and was dismissed, after 
having entered into recognizances to appear again when 
called upon. Bayfield’s constancy, however, filled him 
with remorse and shame at his own weakness and apostasy. 
He could not keep silence; conscience compelled him 
again to teach what he believed to be the truth of God; 
he was seized, brought once more before Stokesley and 
More at Chelsea, condemned, and burnt in Smithfield on 
December 2oth, the anniversary of Stokesley’s consecration, 
which was thus appropriately commemorated ; no royal 
writ having been obtained by either the Bishop or the 
Chancellor to warrant their persecuting the King’s subjects 
to the death. 

Stokesley, as we have seen, had already this year made 
one unsuccessful attempt to get Latimer into his power, 
and, though he had failed, he had not forgotten the 
provocation of the Reformer’s sermon, and was secretly 
devising some means of accomplishing his purpose. 
Latimer’s bishop, Cardinal Campeggio, was abroad, and 
no plans could be concerted with him; but Stokesley 
wrote to Hiley, the Chancellor of the Diocese, complain- 
ing of the contempt done to his authority by Latimer’s 
preaching in St. Mary Abchurch, and requiring him to 
refer the case to London, where the offence had been 
committed, that the offender might be judged there. His 
request might have been resented by Hiley as an 
unwarrantable interference with the affairs of another 
diocese ; but Stokesley was an active prelate, possessing 
great influence both with Sir Thomas More and with the 
sacrilege in a church, carrying away the pix with the blessed sacrament 
in it, or casting out the blessed sacrament from it, but not in the case of 
heretics, except two, viz.,a young lad in his service whom he found 
teaching ‘corrupt doctrine on the blessed sacrament of the altar,’ and 
whom he had stript and whipt before the servants, and a crazy man 
who used to play antics in the church (Chelsea evidently), whom he 


had tied to a tree in the street, and whipt. Other cases (such as that 
of Legar, the bookseller) he specifically denies, 


Latimer Depressed 135 


aged primate Warham ; and it was not prudent to deny 
him any favour on which he had set his heart. 

Happily ignorant of the snares that were being woven 
round him, Latimer was looking forward with pleasant 
anticipations of making merry among his parishioners 
at Christmas, when he was summoned to appear before 
Hiley. He was informed of Stokesley’s complaint against 
him, and was asked to go to London to be tried. He 
declined. Hiley, he said, was his ordinary, and might 
‘reform him as far as he needed reformation, as well and 
as soon as the Bishop of London.’ Besides, it was a 
severe winter ; he was weak and feeble, suffering from 
various painful diseases ; and he would therefore be very 
loth to take so long a journey, especially as he was not 
bound to comply with Stokesley’s request. He promised, 
however, that if Hiley commanded him to go to London 
he would obey, whatever annoyance and pain it might 
occasion him. Hiley expressed himself satisfied with this 
answer, and promised to communicate it to Stokesley. In 
this interview Latimer was accompanied by his friend Sir 
Edward Baynton, lord of the neighbouring manor of 
Bromeham, and a courtier in high favour with Henry; 
and at his suggestion, probably, the Reformer explained 
his doctrines on the subject of purgatory and the wor- 
shipping of saints, in the hope that Hiley might transmit 
to Stokesley an account sufficiently favourable to pacify 
that vindictive prelate. 

Latimer, however, had no such hope of escaping 
Stokesley’s animosity so easily; and he returned to 
West Kington with a heavy heart, disconsolate, and 
almost despondent, tempted to abandon the struggle, 
and to seek rest and safety on the Continent. In his 
grief he wrote a long letter to Baynton, explaining his 
teaching, and narrating what had occurred on his last 
visit to London. He was particularly indignant at 
Stokesley’s interference with him: ‘Meseems,’ says he, 


136 Latimer at West Kington 


‘it were more comely for my lord to be a preacher 
himself, having so great a cure as he hath, than to be 
a disquieter and troubler of preachers, and to preach 
nothing at all himself. If it would please his lordship to 
take so great a labour and pain at any time as to come to 
preach in my little bishopric at West Kington, whether I 
were present or absent myself, I would thank his lordship 
heartily, and think myself greatly bounden to him, that he 
of his charitable goodness would go so far to help to 
discharge me in my cure, or else I were more unnatural 
than a beast unreasonable ; nor yet I would dispute, 
contend, or demand by what authority, or where he 
had authority so to do, as long as his predication were 
faithful and to the edification of my parishioners.’ 

As to the charge of preaching without sufficient authority, 
Latimer maintained that he had as good a licence to preach 
as any that Stokesley could give. The University of Cam- 
bridge had authority to admit twelve yearly,t and Henry 
had decreed that all who were thus admitted should have 
full liberty to preach anywhere in England, so long as 
they preached well ; Latimer had therefore royal authority 
to support him in preaching in London, As to the matter 
of his preaching, if it were taken as he spoke it, Latimer 
felt confident that Stokesley would find nothing to con- 
demn in it. He had, no doubt, reproved the abuses and 
superstitions of voluntary things; he did not, however, 
condemn the things themselves, though those who found 
‘less money in their boxes by condemnation of the abuses,’ 
falsely declared that he did. He admitted that if Stokesley 
were to inquire minutely into his opinions, he would find 
much to displease him, for in many things he has changed. 
Thus, he adds :-— 

‘TI have thought in times past that the Pope, Christ’s 
Vicar, hath been lord of all the world as Christ is ; so 
that if he should have deprived the King of his crown, or 


™ See Note 2, p. 27. 


Changes of Opinion 137 


you of the lordship of Bromeham, it had been enough, for 
he could do no wrong. Now, I might be hired to think 
otherwise. 

‘I have thought in times past, that the Pope’s dispen- 
sation of pluralities of benefices, and absence from the 
same, had discharged consciences before God, forasmuch 
as I have heard certain Scriptures bended to corroborate 
the same. Now, I might be easily entreated to think 
otherwise. 

‘T have thought in times past that the Pope could have 
spoiled purgatory at his pleasure with a word of his mouth. 
Now, learning might persuade me otherwise, or else I 
would marvel why he would suffer so much money to be 
bestowed that way, which is so needful to be bestowed 
otherwise, and to deprive us of so many patrons in heaven 
as he might deliver out of purgatory. 

‘I have thought in times past, that if I had been a friar, 
and in a cowl, I could not have been damned, nor afraid 
of death, and by occasion of the same I have been minded 
many times to have been a friar, namely, when I was 
sore sick and diseased. Now, I abhor my superstitious 
foolishness. 

‘I have thought in times past, that divers images of 
saints could have holpen me, and done me much good, 
and delivered me of my diseases. Now, I know that one 
can help as much as another, and it pitieth my heart that 
my lord, and such as my lord is, can suffer the people to 
be so craftily deceived. It were too long to tell you what 
blindness I have been in, and how long it were ere I could 
forsake such folly, it was so corporate in me; but by 
continual prayer, continual study of Scripture, and oft 
communing with men of more right judgment, God hath 
delivered me. 

‘Yea, men think that my lord himself hath thought in 
times past that by God’s law a man might marry his 
brother’s wife, which now both dare think and say con- 


138 _ Latimer at West Kington 


trary’ [Stokesley was one of the most active agents in 
promoting Henry’s divorce], ‘and yet this his boldness 
might have chanced, in Pope Julius’ days, to stand him 
either in a fire or else in a fagot.’ 

Latimer was well aware of the gravity of the occasion ; 
Stokesley was a determined enemy, and if he once got 
him into his power would not readily let him free again. 

‘I know,’ he concludes, ‘that the matter is as weighty as 
my life is worth; but how to look substantially upon it, 
otherwise know not I, than to pray my Lord God day and 
night, that as He has emboldened me to preach His truth, 
so He will strengthen me to suffer for it, to the edification 
of them which have taken’ [received] ‘by the working of 
Him, fruit thereby. And even so I desire you and all 
other that favour me for His sake, likewise to pray ; for - 
it is not I, without His mighty helping hand, that can 
abide that brunt ; but I have trust that God will help me 
in time of need, which if I had not, the ocean-sea, I think, 
should have divided my Lord of London and me by this 
day. For it is a rare thing for a preacher to have favour 
at his hands, which is no preacher himself and yet ought 
to be. If I be not prevented shortly, I intend to make 
merry with my parishioners this Christmas, for’ [in spite 
of] ‘all the sorrow, lest perchance I never return to them 
again; and I have heard say, that a doe is as good in 
winter as a buck in summer.’? 

Baynton communicated this letter to some of his friends, 
who censured it severely, condemning it especially for its 
arrogance. ‘God only knew the truth for certain,’ so 
Baynton’s friends urged, with the time-honoured common- 
places which have been in all ages the creed of the in- 
dolent ; ‘and if any man’s preaching excited contention 
rather than charity, whatever he might allege in defence 
of his opinions, yet the teaching was not to be taken as of 
God, because it broke the chain of Christian charity, and 


* Latimer’s Remains, pp. 322-334. 


Present Confidence 139 


made division in the people.’ Baynton himself, with the 
true instincts of a courtier, recommended caution and 
submission ; it was not for an unlearned man like him, 
he said, to give sentence in such high matters, but as a 
prudent man he was of course bound to adhere to the 
‘opinions of the majority, unless it should please God to 
add to Latimer’s opinions converts ‘in such honest 
number’ as ought to induce him to change his belief.* 
It is this indolent ignorance, assuming the garb of modesty 
and prudence, which has always been the grand obstacle 
to every reformation ; and Latimer, though unusually busy 
with the cares of his parish, and at a distance from books 
and from learned friends, lost no time in defending himself 
against the charges of his cautious critics. 

‘Ye mislike that I say I am sure that I preach the truth ; 
saying in reproof of the same, that God alone knoweth 
certain truth. Indeed God alone knoweth all certain 
truth. But as to my presumption and arrogancy, either 
I am certain or uncertain that it is truth that I preach. 
If it be truth, why may not I say so, to courage my 
hearers to receive the same more ardently and ensue it 
more studiously? If I be uncertain, why dare I be so 
bold to preach it? And if your friends, in whom ye trust 
so greatly, be preachers themselves, after their sermons, 
I pray you, ask them whether they be certain and sure 
that they taught you the truth or no; and send me word 
what they say, that I may learn to speak after them’ [to 
answer as they did]. ‘If they say that they be sure, ye 
know what followeth’ [they were arrogant], ‘if they say 
they be unsure, when shall you be sure, that have so 
doubtful teachers and unsure? And you yourselves 
whether are you certain or uncertain that Christ is 
your Saviour ?’? 

Latimer utterly denied that there was any foundation 


* See Baynton’s Letter, in Foxe, vol. vii. p. 490. 
2 Second letter to Baynton ; Latimer’s Remains, pp. 334, etc, 


/ 


140 Latimer at West Kington 


for the charge of pride brought against him ; he had not 
taught great subtleties and high matters to the people, but 
had confined himself to the simple utterance of ‘ true faith 
and fruits of the same.’ If this preaching was followed by 
dissension and division, he was very sorry ; such was not 
his intention ; still it would not be safe to conclude, as 
Baynton’s friends had done, that such preaching must 
necessarily be of the devil. St. Paul’s preaching to the 
Galatians had occasioned much dissension in that Church, 
but it did not follow that St. Paul was not a true apostle. 
St. Jerome’s writings had stirred up bitter dissension ; 
were they therefore not of God? The doctrine that 
marriage with a deceased brother’s wife was illegal had 
occasioned much dissension in a Christian congregation ; 
were those who maintained this doctrine (that is, Henry, 
Stokesley, and others), to be forthwith condemned as of 
the devil? And referring again to a position that had 
already excited much odium against him, he asked :— 

‘What mean your friends by a Christian congregation ? 
All those, trow ye, that have been Christianed? But 
many of those be in worse condition, and shall have 
greater damnation, than many unchristianed. For it is 
not enough to a Christian congregation that is of God, 
to have been christened ; but it is to be considered what 
we promise when we be christened, to renounce Satan, 
his works, his pomps; which thing if we busy not our- 
selves to do, let us not crack’ [i.e boast], ‘that we 
profess Christ’s name in a Christian congregation. The 
devils believe in God to their little comfort. I pray 
God to save you and your friends from that believing 
congregation, and from that faithful company. 

‘Ye pray for agreement both in the truth and in 
uttering of the truth ; when shall that be, as long as we 
will not hear the truth, but disquiet the preachers of the 
truth, because they reprove our evilness? And, to say 
the truth, better it were to have a deformity in preaching, 


- Summoned to London 14! 


so that some would preach the truth of God, than to have 
such a uniformity, that the silly people should be thereby 
occasioned to continue still in their lamentable ignorance, 
corrupt judgment, superstition, and idolatry, and esteem 
things, as they do all, preposterously ; doing that that 
they need not for to do, leaving undone that they ought 
for to. do, for want of knowing what is to be done.’ 
Latimer had still much to learn; he was slow in 
pushing the doctrines he had adopted to their logical 
conclusions, and was anxious to retain all the ceremonies 
of the Church, only purified from what he deemed in- 
cidental abuses; but the gulf between him and the 
defenders of the Church was daily widening, and the 
necessity of supporting his own teaching was gradually 
compelling him to advance farther and farther in the 
direction of a thorough reform, both in doctrine and in 
ritual. He was still engaged in his animated reply when 
a messenger arrived from Sir Walter Hungerford, of 
Farley, with a dreaded citation to appear before 
Stokesley to answer for the ‘crimes and grave excesses 
committed by him within the diocese of London’ (certis 
articulis sive interrogatoriis, crimina seu excessus graves infra 
jurisdictionem London per ipsum commissos concernentibus, 
personaliter responsurus). Hiley had yielded to Stokesley’s 
importunity, and had issued the citation on January fo, 
1532, requiring Latimer to proceed to London imme- 
diately, and appear before the Bishop in the Consistory 
Court in St. Paul’s Church, on Monday, January 29, 
between the hours of nine and eleven in the forenoon.? 
Latimer could not refuse to obey the citation of his lawful 
ordinary, and with a heavy heart he prepared for the un- 
pleasant journey, which might involve so many important 
consequences. ‘What a world is this,’ he remarked, ‘that 
I shall be put to so great labour and pains, besides great 


. ® Second letter to Baynton : Remains, pp. 334-351. 
2 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 455. 


142 Latimer at West Kington 


costs above my power, for preaching of a poor simple 
sermon! But, I trow, our Saviour Christ said true, “I 
must needs suffer and so enter”; so perilous a thing it 
is to live virtuously with Christ.’ 

With melancholy forebodings of what might befall him, 
Latimer set off for London. It was almost exactly a year 
since he had come to reside in his country rectory, hoping 
for rest and peace after the turmoil of the Court and the 
bitter controversies of Cambridge; but his wishes had 
been disappointed ; debate and strife had followed him 
and invaded his retirement; and he was now about to 
appear before a determined and implacable judge who 
prided himself.on showing no mercy to any teacher of 
heresy. On arriving in London, he was immediately 
placed on his trial before Stokesley and a secret con- 
clave of episcopal assessors. He was repeatedly 
examined; but nothing was elicited on which any 
definite charge of heresy could be founded. For 
Latimer, it will be remembered, had not yet diverged 
far from the customary orthodoxy of the Church: he 
had inveighed against the abuses and superstitions which 
so widely prevailed, and had condemned the carelessness 
and ignorance of the clergy ; but this had been done even 
by Convocation itself, and could not be construed to be 
a doctrinal heresy. 

Still the Bishops knew that in Latimer they had one of 
the chief leaders of those clergy who were in favour of 
the Reformed doctrines ; and they were resolved to find 
some ground for proceeding against him, and for involving 
him in liability to punishment. Latimer himself has left 
us a graphic account of the expedients devised to entrap 
him.* 

‘Once I was in examination before five or six bishops, 
where I had much turmoiling. Every week twice I came 
to examination, and many snares and traps were laid to 

t In his sermon preached at Stamford. Sermons, p. 294. 


Snares 143 


get something. At the last I was brought forth to be 
examined into a chamber hanged with arras, where I was 
before wont to be examined; but now at this time the 
chamber was somewhat altered ; for, whereas before there 
was wont ever to be a fire in the chimney, now the fire 
was taken away, and an arras-hanging hanged over the 
chimney, and the table stood near the chimney’s end ; 
so that I stood between the table and the chimney’s 
end. There was among these bishops that examined 
me one with whom I have been very familiar, and took 
him for my great friend, an aged man, and he sat next the 
table end. Then among all other questions, he put forth 
one, a very subtle and crafty one; and such one indeed 
as I could not think so great danger in. And when I 
should make answer, ‘I pray you, Master Latimer,” said 
he, “speak out; I am very thick of hearing, and here 
be many that sit far off.” I marvelled at this, that I was 
bidden speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave an ear 
to the chimney. And there I heard a pen walking in the 
chimney behind the cloth. They had appointed one there 
to write all my answers; for they made sure work that 
I should not start from them. The question was this :— 
“Master Latimer, do you not think, on your conscience, 
that you have been suspected of heresy?” A subtle 
question, a very subtle question. There was no holding 
of peace would serve. To hold my peace had been to 
grant myself, faulty. To answer it was every way full of 
danger. But God, which alway hath given me answer, 
helped me, or else I could never have escaped it; and 
delivered me from their hands.’ 

Latimer has not recorded the answer by which he 
escaped this question so ingeniously contrived to ensnare 
him ; but he never was in a position where his ready wit 
and skill in logical fence were so urgently required to 
secure his safety. If the charge of heretical teaching 
could be clearly substantiated against him, he knew well 


144 Latimer at West Kington 


that he could expect no favour ; Henry still prided himself 
on his unimpeachable orthodoxy ; and neither Cromwell 
nor Anne Boleyn could have ventured to intercede for a 
convicted heretic. 

Fortunately for Latimer, the circumstances of the times 
were such as to inspire Stokesley with caution. Par- 
liament had assembled, and the Commons were with 
one voice complaining of the tyrannical proceedings 
of the clergy in the Ecclesiastical Courts. The divorce, 
too, still dragging its slow length along, was embittering 
the relations of the Pope and the King; and loud 
murmurs against Papal insolence were beginning to be 
uttered all over England. At the very time when 
Latimer was on his way to London, Francis I. had 
written to the Pope urging him to consent to Henry’s 
proposals,‘ assuring him that there was no longer the 
customary ready obedience to the Papal See in England, 
and warning him that if he persisted in denying the King’s 
request, the Papal authority would run the risk of serious 
diminution. So threatening, indeed, was the aspect of 
affairs at the time, that Warham apprehended the most 
serious disasters to the Church ; and, unable in his old 
age to make any more active resistance, he attempted to 
save his dignity by solemnly protesting, at Lambeth, in 
the presence of a few notaries, against any statutes that 
might be passed in Parliament in contravention of the 
authority of the Pope and the privileges of the See of 
Canterbury.? It is not easy to conjecture any purpose 
that could have been promoted by such a protest, which 
was of course studiously kept secret ; it is easy enough, 

t See the letter in Froude’s Pilgrim, p. 86. 

? His protest is dated February 24, 1532, and is printed in Wilkins’ 
Concilia, vol. iii. p. 746, and Burnet, vol. v., p. 32:—‘ Nolumus alicui 
statuto in przesenti parliamento edito, seu deinceps edendo, in deroga- 
tionem Romani pontificis, aut sedis apostolicz ; ... aut in subver- 
sionem vel diminutionem jurium .. . nostrz ecclesize metropolitanze 


Cantuariensis, gwomodolibet consentire,’ etc. : bold words, which might 
have cost him his life, had he survived a few years longer. 


No Surrender 145 


however, to understand, that under a leader who thus 
retired from the open contest to protest in private, the 
cause of the clergy was hopeless: they were already 
‘demoralized,’ and defeat was inevitable. The Bishops 
were thus thoroughly alive to the necessity of caution 
in proceeding against Latimer, so as not to provoke 
public indignation by any summary or unjust measure ; 
and Latimer, for his part, was equally cautious not to 
commit himself, for he believed that a man ought not 
to sacrifice his life except for a very worthy reason. For 
six weeks, therefore, the examination continued without 
any result; and, at the end of that time, Stokesley, 
having failed to implicate him in any charge of heresy, 
referred the case to Convocation, 

On March 11, 1532, therefore, Latimer was summoned 
before Convocation,‘ and was then required to subscribe 
certain articles, so that he might be compelled either to 
maintain what would be considered as downright heresy, 
or apparently to sanction all the abuses that he had so 
often and so earnestly denounced. He refused point 
blank to subscribe. A second time he was asked, and 
again refused. A third time he was asked, and again 
declined absolutely to subscribe. For this obstinacy the 
Archbishop pronounced him contumacious, and excom- 
municated him; and Latimer was ordered to be kept 
in custody in Lambeth till Convocation had determined 
what further course should be adopted. The articles 
were the following :— 

1. I believe that there is a purgatory to purge the souls 

of the dead. 

2. That the souls in purgatory are holpen by the masses, 

prayers, and alms of the living. 

3. That the saints in heaven pray for us as mediators. 

4. That the saints should be honoured. ! 

® Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 745. 
2 Penitus recusavit: Wilkins, ubi supra. 
10 


146 Latimer at West Kington 


5. That the invocation of saints is profitable. 

6. That pilgrimages and oblations to the relics and 
sepulchres of saints are meritorious. 

7. That persons under a vow of perpetual chastity may 
not marry without a dispensation from the Pope. 

8. That the keys of binding and loosing committed to 
St. Peter remain with his successors the Bishops of 
Rome, even though they live wickedly ; and were 
not given to laymen. 

g. That fasting, prayer, and other good works merit 
favour at God’s hands. 

1o. That persons forbidden by the Bishop to preach, 
should not preach till they have purged themselves 
before him. 

11. That Lent and other fasts should be observed. 

12. That in every one of the seven sacraments grace is 
obtained by those who rightly receive. 

13. That consecrations and benedictions are laudable and 
profitable. 

14. That the crucifix, and other images of saints should be 
kept in churches as memorials, and to the honour 
and worship of Jesus Christ and His saints. 

15. That it is laudable to deck those images and to burn 
candles before them. 

These articles are nearly the same as those that Crome 
had been compelled to sign, and had been drawn up with 
great ingenuity. For Latimer was not yet prepared to givea 
categorical denial to the truth of any one of them, considered ~ 
as a simple theological dogma; yet by subscribing them he 
seemed to be sanctioning all those hideous abuses which 
he had been for years denouncing. They all belonged 
to that wide catalogue of what he was accustomed to call 
‘voluntary things’; he had often condemned the abuses 
which sprung from them; he had endeavoured to show 
his hearers that they were of far less importance than — 
the plain duties which God had commanded in Holy 


An Appeal to Warham 147 


Scripture ; he was even beginning to suspect that they 
had very little sanction in Scripture; yet he was not 
prepared to deny their abstract truth or theoretical 
lawfulness. 

Ten days were allowed to elapse before he was again 
summoned before Convocation. He spent them in the 
greatest mental distress and uncertainty. To subscribe 
the articles was to lend his sanction to the preposterous 
over-esteem in which things merely voluntary, human 
inventions and institutions, were held; to continue to 
refuse was to expose his life to danger for what did not 
sufficiently appear to him to be an adequate cause. In his 
perplexity he wrote a pathetic letter to Warham. The 
excitement had begun to tell upon his health; he was 
distressed at being so long detained from his flock ; and 
he complained of the hard and unfair manner in which he 
had been treated. He had been originally cited to appear 
before the Bishop of London on a specific charge ; but 
the process had been transferred to Convocation, and 
extraneous questions had been added to the original 
accusation, till there seemed no prospect of any termina- 
tion. Why, he asked, should he thus be compelled to 
subscribe to the opinions of others obtruded upon him ? 
If his preaching had been obscure, he was ready to explain 
it; for he had never preached anything contrary to the 
truth, or the decrees of the fathers, or (as far as he knew) 
the Catholic faith. He had, he admitted, desired to 
reform the judgment of the common people ; and to teach 
them to distinguish between such duties as God had 
appointed for every man to walk in, and such as were 
voluntary, which men undertook of their own strength 
and pleasure. 

‘Images, I own, are lawful; it is lawful to go on 
pilgrimages ; it is lawful to pray to saints; it is lawful to 
care for the souls in purgatory ; but these things, which 
are merely voluntary, are to be kept in such moderation 


148 Latimer at West Kington 


that God’s commandments, which are of necessary obliga- 
tion, be not deprived of their just value. But what can 
be more unseemly, than to employ our preaching in that 
which God has not commanded ; whilst those things which 
are commanded, thereby fall into neglect? 

‘It cannot be denied,’ he proceeds, ‘that there are, and 
have long been amongst us, intolerable abuses. Why, 
then, should a preacher be required to encourage works 
which, though they were seldomer (not to say never) 
performed, I do not see that the Christian religion would 
lose anything? Is anyone blind to the manifest abuses of 
many things? Does any one see them without regret, 
without endeavouring to remove them? And when will 
they be removed if preachers continually recommend the 
use of the things without ever saying a word against the 
abuses? In such a case the abuses are sure to prevail and 
be perpetuated. Christ has ordered us to preach noi all 
things which you choose to esteem necessary, but those 
things which He has commanded. And let us, for God’s 
sake, endeavour with all our energy, to preach the 
doctrines of God, lest we become corrupt traffickers in 
preaching rather than true preachers; especially since 
men are very averse to Divine things, and so active about 
their own affairs as to need no spur, being miserably 
deceived by a mistaken estimate of things, and innate 
superstition derived from their parents ; faults which we 
shall scarce be able to amend by any preaching, however 
frequent, however pure and sincere. May God provide 
the remedy ; but in these evil days, those who themselves 
ought to preach, hinder those who are both willing and 
able, or compel men to preach who are mere traffickers 
for gain, so keeping the unfortunate people in superstition 
and vain confidence. For these reasons, most reverend 
father, I dare not subscribe the bare propositions submitted 
to me, because I am unwilling, by any little authority of 
mine, to perpetuate this popular superstition, lest in so 


Latimer Gives Way 149 


doing I should bring damnation on myself. It is not pride 
that keeps me from subscribing these articles, which you 
have so often to my extreme distress asked me to subscribe. 
It cannot but be blameworthy not to obey the fathers and 
rulers of the Church; but they also must take heed what 
and whom they command, since there are occasions on 
which one must obey God rather than man.’? 

Latimer’s arguments were unanswerable, but they 
probably were of much less avail with Warham than 
the influence of Latimer’s Court friends. Butts and 
Cromwell, we may believe, were industriously mediating 
between Latimer and his enemies, seeking to induce him 
to moderate his opinions, and them to depart from their 
demands; and to their intercession probably may be 
ascribed the compromise that was proposed on Latimer’s 
next appearance before Convocation. 

On March 21, he again stood before his judges, and the 
Bishops at once offered to release him from the sentence 
of excommunication pronounced upon him, if he would 
consent to subscribe the eleventh and fourteenth articles, 
of those originally presented to him, and apologise for 
what had passed. He assented to the proposal, which, 
after the severities of the previous autumn, must have 
seemed to Stokesley an unprecedented exhibition of. 
leniency ; and he hoped at last to be restored to freedom. 
It was not, however, the intention of the Bishops to let 
him off so easily. He was obliged on bended knees to 
apologise ; to ask pardon from Stokesley, who presided 
in the absence of Warham; and to read the following 
ignominious confession :2—‘ My Lords, I do confess that 
I have misordered myself very far, in that I have so 


* The original in Latin, admirably vigorous and terse, is preserved in 
Foxe, vol. vii. p. 456, etc. In the translations from Latimer’s Latin 
writings, Wordsworth (Ecclesiastical Biography) has usually been 
consulted, as on the whole accurate, but has in no case been implicitly 
followed. 

# Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 747. 


150 Latimer at West Kington 


presumptuously and boldly preached, reproving certain 
things; by which the people that were infirm, hath 
occasion of ill, Wherefore I ask forgiveness of my 
misbehaviour; I will be glad to make amends; and I 
have spoken indiscreetly in vehemence of speaking, and 
have erred in some things.’ He then humbly requested 
to be absolved from the sentence of excommunication 
pronounced against him; but Convocation was in no 
hurry to bring matters to a definite conclusion, and 
remanded him for three weeks, hoping, doubtless, to 
wring still further concessions from him. He was brought 
before them again on April 10; and, according to the 
records of Convocation,* he now of his own accord 
signed ? all the articles except the eleventh and fourteenth 
(which he had previously subscribed), and was formally 
absolved, but was still to remain in London, and was to 
appear before them yet again ere he received permission 
to return to his country rectory. 

The truth was, whispers had reached the ears of the 
Bishops of a new offence committed by Latimer. His 
case had excited considerable public interest, and the 
report of his submission and recantation had been, no 
doubt, circulated with triumphant alacrity by those who 
had been offended at his preaching. Among others, 
Greenwood, one of his old antagonists at Cambridge, had 
heard of his fall, and had expressed the greatest exultation 
at his open abandonment of his doctrines. Latimer was 
stung to the quick when informed of Greenwood’s tone of 
victorious assumption, and wrote an indignant reply, all 
the more indignant, perhaps, because his conscience had 
also been suggesting the same accusations that Greenwood 
had uttered against him. 

‘ Master Greenwood, I pray your goodness be charitable : 


* The original records of this period, it is well known, are lost ; those 
here cited are the records as given from various sources, in Wilkins’ 
Concilia. 

2 Voluntarie subscripsit. Wilkins, wbi supra. 


“Plenty of Enemies” 151 


in these evil days one must not believe everything one 
hears, but, if all be truth that I hear, I must accuse you of 
a grievous lack of Christian charity. I have plenty of 
enemies, even if you were anxious to befriend me; plenty 
of calumnious slander is uttered against me, even if you 
should remain silent ; you shall give an account of every 
idle word, how much more of every mischievous one! 
As to my preaching, as I was not conscious of having 
preached any error, I have not made any public acknow- 
ledgment of any error ; though peradventure, more out’ 
[i.e.. outspoken] ‘some time than well advised, not 
treating the “righteous Word which can save the souls,” 
with such reverence, majesty, or gravity, as either I ought, 
or I would have had ; nor with due discretion at all times ; 
having respect to the time, and the rudeness and the 
rashness of the people. . . . And yet, peradventure, the 
misbehaviour of the people might as well be imputed to 
other things as to my preaching; but yet I will not be 
contentious. As to the people, though I will have more 
respect to their capacity, yet as to my old preaching, I 
will not change the verity ; and I will with all diligence, 
according to my promise in my writings, do all that is in 
me to reprove their infirmity.’ * 

The letter, of course, came into the hands of the Bishops, 
and was naturally enough interpreted by them as an 
attempt to resile from the articles subscribed. Latimer’s 
submission would be fruitless, if he were allowed to preach 
the same doctrine as before, and to boast that he had 
never acknowledged any error in his teaching; he was 
therefore again summoned before Convocation, on April 
15, to answer for his letter to Greenwood. His case 
was remanded to April 19, and when he appeared before 
his judges on that day, seeing no hope of any escape from 
these interminable proceedings, he appealed to Henry. 

This bold step, which was a practical recognition of the 

™ Latimer’s Remains, p. 356, from the Harleian MSS. 


152 Latimer at West Kington’ 


great declaration of the previous year that the King was 
the supreme head of the Church and clergy of England, - 
was no doubt recommended by Cromwell, and was worthy 
of Cromwell’s sagacity.7 It was flattering Henry on his 
weakest point, and was certain to secure his protection, 
except for gross and palpable heresy, such as could not 
yet be charged against Latimer. There is reason to 
believe that he was conducted into Henry’s presence-on 
thus appealing to his jurisdiction, and was required to 
explain his conduct and doctrines to the Sovereign, who 
specially delighted in a theological discussion ; and it was 
probably Henry’s advice that guided Latimer in his subse- 
quent proceeding. Such at least seems to be implied in 
a document in the State Paper Office, which is unhappily 
ina state of tantalizing mutilation.2 On the understanding, 
therefore, that Latimer was to make a full and explicit 
apology, and to promise for the future more care in his 
preaching, Henry approved of his appeal; and Gardiner, 
Bishop of Winchester, was instructed to intimate to 


x Anne Boleyn is also said to have exerted her influence in Latimer’s 
favour, but of this no authentic proof has ever been adduced. 

2 The document is given here from the Rolls, Chapter House Papers, 
A. I. 7.165. The parts supplied from conjecture are in italics :— 

‘Doctor Wilson, chaplain to the King’s Grace, and Confessor, before 
divers worshipful men of Bristow said that when Mr. Latymer was 
before the bishops he appealed to the King’s Grace. To whom the 
King’s Grace*said, ‘Mr, Latymer, I am sure ye have good learning, it 
were pity but ye should hereafter preach much better than ye have, for 
you have been forced to recant and to be abjured, and I will not take 
upon me now to be a suitor to the bishops for you, unless you promise 
to do penance as ye have deserved, and never to preach any such 
things again. Ye shall else only get from me a fagot to burn you.”’ 
Stephen Vaughan, writing to Cromwell from Calais on St. George's 
Day, April 22, no year (but clearly it must be 1532), says :-— 

‘May I be bold to desire you to be solicitor unto the King’s Highness 
for Doctor Latimer, who, as I am informed, is troubled by my Lord of 
Canterbury or some other. If the cause thereof be just and good, 
then shall he deserve it ; if otherwise, pity it were to trouble or cast 
away a man whom many men have in so good an opinion. I have 
none acquaintance with the man, nor I doubt not but that my Lord 
of Canterbury, or any other, before whom he shall be at any time 
examined, shall use him according to their honours and his merits,’— 
State Paper Office : Cromwell's Correspondence. 


Free Once More 153 


Convocation the King’s desire that Latimer should be 
forgiven and received into favour. 

Once more, therefore, for the last time, Latimer appeared 
before Convocation, on April 22, and on his knees 
acknowledged that ‘ whereas he had aforetime confessed, 
that he had heretofore erred, meaning that it was only 
error of discretion, he had since better seen his own acts, 
and searched them more deeply, and doth acknowledge 
that he hath not erred only in discretion, but also in 
doctrine, and that he was not called before the said lords 
but upon good and just grounds, and hath been by them 
charitably and favourably treated ; and whereas he hath 
aforetime misreported of the lords, he acknowledges that 
he hath done ill in it, and desires them humbly to forgive 
him, and whereas he is not of ability to make them recom- 
pense, he will pray for them.’* On this submission, he 
was by the King’s express desire received into favour, 
with the provision that if he relapsed, the old charges 
should be revived. Finally, having promised to obey the 
law, and keep the mandates of the Church, he was absolved 
by Stokesley ; and once more, after three months’ cruel / 
annoyance, he was a free man. 

This is the darkest page in Latimer’s history, and no 
attempt has here been made in any way to conceal or 
extenuate his weakness. Something might no doubt be 
urged in his defence: he was constitutionally weak; he 
was overpersuaded by his friends; he was overawed by 
Henry ; he had not been guilty of apostasy, for he still 
honestly adhered to almost all the doctrines of the Romish 
Church. But making all possible allowance for these 
considerations, it cannot be denied that Latimer’s conduct 
on his trial was unworthy of his character and of his 
position. Caution and prudence in preserving life are 
admirable virtues; but there are emergencies when it 
becomes all true men to face danger, and to recognise 

® Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 748. 


154 Latimer at West Kington 


that there are causes more sacred even than life. His 
timidity could not but have a disastrous effect wherever 
his influence extended; the friends of the Reformation 
would be perplexed and alarmed at this weakness in one 
who seemed their bravest leader; its enemies would be 
more than ever convinced that, by the proper threats of 
severity, heresy might be effectually crushed. Before 
Latimer left London for his country parish, he had an 
interview with a layman lying in Newgate under sentence 
of death. for teaching. Reformed doctrines, which must 
have made him feel heartily ashamed of his culpable 
caution, and must have caused him to ask himself whether 
in his excessive prudence he had not almost been guilty of 
‘denying Christ.’ 

On the same day, April 19, when Latimer was ex- 
plaining his letter to Greenwood before Convocation, 
Stokesley’s Vicar-General was presiding at the trial of 
Bainham, a relapsed heretic. The son of a Gloucester- 
shire knight, a learned lawyer, a man of eminent charity 
and piety, Bainham was well known and highly esteemed 
as ‘a singular example to his profession,”’* He was a 
diligent and devout reader of Holy Scripture ; he frequented 
the preaching of Crome and Latimer ; he had married the 
widow of Simon Fish, the author of the famous ‘ Supplica- 
tion of Beggars’; and was, of course, a suspected man. 
In the end of 1531, he had been accused to More, and 
was, by the Chancellor’s order, taken to his residence in 
Chelsea, and whipped at the ‘Tree of Troth,’ in his 
garden. Bainham, however, was resolute, and neither 
confessed nor recanted anything. He refused to name 
any of his associates, or to disclose where his books were 
concealed. Enraged at his firmness, More sent him to 
the Tower, and stood over him, it is said, while he was 
racked till he was almost lame : but Bainham still remained 
unmovable. His wife, too, was sent to the Fleet, and an 


* Foxe, vol. iv. p. 697 


Bainham’s Martyrdom 155 


attempt was made to extract a confession from her ; but 
from such a woman, that had been twice ‘so husbanded,’ 
no secrets were to be wrung by any indignity. Bainham 
was again examined before More and Stokesley ; and his 
answers on the doctrines of purgatory and the invocation 
of saints, exhibited a boldness and a knowledge of Scripture, 
such as any of the Reforming preachers might have envied. 
Finally, after two months’ further imprisonment, he was 
induced to make a modified recantation, and was fined, 
and set at liberty in February, 1532, just when Stokesley 
had directed all his energies to the hunting down of 
Latimer. 

But his conscience refused to be pacified: he felt that 
he had denied his Master, and like Peter, he wept, and 
went about bewailing his fall. He had scandalised the 
faithful community with whom he worshipped, and he 
felt that some apology was due to them. He went 
accordingly to the warehouse in Bow Lane, where this 
first Protestant congregation assembled to worship, and 
asked them to forgive him. Even this did not satisfy him ; 
he resolved in a still more public manner to signify his 
contrition. On the following Sunday, with Tindale’s New 
Testament in his hand, and the same writer’s Obedience of 
a Christian Man in his bosom, he entered his parish church 
of St. Austin’s, and standing up in his place before the 
whole congregation, confessed with many tears that he 
had denied his Saviour, and warned them all to beware of 
being seduced by the example of his weakness. ‘Such a 
hell as was in his bosom,’ he declared, ‘he would not 
again feel for all the world’s wealth.’ It was not difficult 
to foresee the result of such proceedings, which were a 
formal challenge to Stokesley ; Bainham was again appre- 
hended, and refusing all inducements to recant, he was 
condemned to be burned at Smithfield on the last day of 
April. 

Latimer had just been set free after his humiliating 


156 Latimer at West Kington 


submission to Convocation ; and before leaving London, 
he, at the urgent entreaty of his friends, Ralph and 
William Morice, paid a visit to Bainham in Newgate, in 
order to understand the precise ground of his condemna- 
tion, which, it seems, was somewhat disputed, and to 
comfort him to take his death patiently. On the evening, 
therefore, before the day appointed for the martyrdom, 
Latimer and his companions visited Newgate, and when 
they ‘ were come down into the dungeon, where all things 
seemed utterly dark, there they found Bainham, sitting 
upon a couch of straw, with a book and a wax candle in 
his hand, praying and reading thereupon,’ * 

Latimer, full of that unhappy caution which had been 
inspired into him by his Court friends, and which he 
cherished as the only defence of his conduct, began the 
conversation. ‘Mr. Bainham, we hear say that you are 
condemned for heresy to be burnt, and many men are in 
doubt wherefore you should suffer ; and I, for my part, 
am desirous to understand the cause of your death; 
assuring you that I do not allow that any man should con- 
sent to his own death, unless he had a right cause to 
die in. Let not vain-glory overcome you in a matter that 
men deserve not to die for ; for therein you shall neither 
please God, do good to yourself nor your neighbour ; and 
better it were for you to submit yourself to the ordinances 
of men, than so rashly to finish your life without good 
ground, And, therefore, we pray you to let us to under- 
stand the articles that you are condemned for.’ 

Bainham recapitulated the articles. He had spoken of 
Thomas-a-Becket, the great patron saint of the South East 
of England, as a traitor. ‘ That,’ said Latimer emphati- 
cally, ‘is no cause at all worthy for a man to take his 
death upon.’ 

‘I spoke also against purgatory,’ Bainham proceeded, 
‘that there was no such thing ; but that it picked men’s 

t Strype, Eccl. Mem, from the Harleian MSS., 422. 


Bainham and Latimer 157 


purses ; and against satisfactory masses’ (i.e., against the’ 
doctrine that the mass was an atonement or sacrifice for © 
sins). 

‘Marry,’ said Latimer, ‘in these articles your conscience 
may be so stayed, that you may seem rather to die’ [i.c., 
it may seem your duty rather to die] ‘in the defence 
thereof, than to recant both against your conscience, and 
the Scriptures also. But yet beware of vain-glory ; for 
the devil will be ready now to infect you therewith, when 
you shall come into the multitude of the people.’ 

After thus cautioning him against the imaginary danger 
of sacrificing his life simply out of pure vain-glory, 
Latimer encouraged him to take his death quietly and 
patiently. Bainham thanked him heartily, and having 
doubtless perceived Latimer’s own weak point, he added, 
‘TI likewise do exhort you to stand to the defence of the truth ; 
for you that shall be left behind had need of comfort’ 
[strength] ‘also, the world being so dangerous as it is’ ; 
and so spake many comfortable words to Latimer. After 
some further converse they departed ; and the next day 
(April 30) Bainham was burned, constant and undaunted 
to the end. 

In the beginning of May, therefore, we suppose that 
Latimer returned, after an absence of four months, to 
resume the duties of his parish. The words of Bainham, 
as we shall see, had not been like water spilt upon the 
ground ; they had produced a deep impression on 
Latimer’s mind, and compelled him not only to pass in 
judgment his own conduct, contrasting so strongly with 
that of Bainham, but also to examine more carefully than 
he had yet done, the Scriptural authority for those 
doctrines which he was still prepared to admit as true, 
while protesting against the gross abuses by which they 
were accompanied. He began to inquire whether the 
doctrines themselves were not abuses, whether purgatory 
was not, as Bainham had styled it, an ecclesiastical device 


EX 


158 Latimer at West Kington 


invented to pick men’s purses, and totally destitute of any 
Scriptural sanction. For some time after his return, we 
have no authentic record of his proceedings: his parish 
furnished him with interesting pastoral labour ; his leisure 
hours would be spent in thought, in study, in prayer 
for Divine guidance and help, and in a more careful 
examination of the Scriptural grounds of his religious 
teaching. 

The two great controversies which had so long con- 
vulsed and divided England, the divorce, and the question 
of the Royal supremacy which had sprung out of it, were 
meantime drawing toa close. In the month of May, just 
as Latimer had returned home, it was enacted that ‘no 
constitution should be promulgated by the clergy unless 
the King had first approved the same.’ The legislative 
powers of Convocation were thus annihilated; and the 
Church that had so often bearded the Majesty of England 
was muzzled and silenced. As before, Convocation 
attempted to throw an air of dignity over their fall. They 
declared that ‘having special trust and confidence in 
Henry’s most high and excellent wisdom, his princely 
goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's © 
honour and Christian religion, and specially in his incom- 
parable learning far exceeding that of all other kings that 
they had read of,’* they promised that during the King’s 
life they would forbear to enact any constitutions without 
his licence. Henry was too conscious of his own power 
to grudge them this little piece of bravado; and on 
May 15, the clergy assented to the Act which terminated 
their independent legislative authority in England. Next 
day, Sir Thomas More resigned his Chancellorship, 
unwilling to survive the glory of that Church of which 
he had been for some years the chief ornament and 
defence. 

The long-drawn divorce controversy was also verging to 


* Burnet, vol. vi. p. 50. 


The See of Canterbury Vacant 159 


its termination. Negotiations were still prosecuted at the 
Papal Court, but with no great energy. The Pope’s 
counsellor’s were suspicious of Henry’s policy. The 
abrogation of the power of Convocation filled them with 
distrust. The story of Latimer’s troubles, also, had 
reached Rome ; and the Pope grievously complained that 
a priest who had been imprisoned by the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, had been set free on appealing to the King. 
Everything portended a speedy rupture. Henry, who 
had waited with exemplary patience till all hope of 
obtaining the Papal sanction to his divorce was desperate, 
at last determined to take the final step by marrying 
Anne Boleyn. 

An unforeseen occurrence delayed the marriage for a 
time. On August 23, 1532, Warham, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, died ; and until a successor was duly consecrated 
by the authority of the customary Papal Bulls, it would 
have been the height of rashness to take any step that 
would completely alienate the Pope. Writers of history 
have enlarged upon Henry’s violent passion for Anne 
Boleyn, and his uncontrollable temper, impatient of all 
opposition ; but in truth Henry proceeded throughout 
with the greatest caution and prudence, and never allowed 
his emotions to lead him to any action that might create 
embarrassment in the succession to the throne. His 
proposed marriage was therefore delayed till the Bulls for 
consecrating the new Archbishop were procured from 
Rome. Much depended upon the character of Warham’s 
successor ; for though shorn of some of his dignity, the 
Primate of England could not but exert an important 
influence on the Church at such a crisis as that which was 
now imminent. 

Henry’s choice, directed by a Higher Hand, fell on 
Cranmer, and he could not have made a wiser selection. 
In point of learning, prudence, piety, and integrity, no . 

* Lord Herbert’s Henry VIIL., p. 264. 


160 Latimer at West Kington 


man in England was better qualified than Cranmer to 
discharge the duties of so responsible an office ; and to 
his influence, direct or indirect, may be ascribed most of 
the beneficial measures of Henry’s subsequent reign. 
Cranmer at first declined the offered advancement, but on 
Henry’s renewed and repeated request that he would 
accept it, he at last consented ; and. it only remained to 
procure the Bulls for his consecration from Clement. 

In the beginning of January, 1533, accordingly, Henry 
requested Clement to forward the necessary Bulls. But 
scarcely were the royal messengers despatched when a 
Bull arrived from Rome, written by the Pope some two 
months before, under the inspiration of the Emperor (who 
had heard some rumour of Henry’s contemplated mar- 
riage), ordering Henry in the most peremptory manner to 
dismiss Anne forthwith from the Court. The tone of the 
despatch was too much for Henry to bear; it was the 
crowning insult, and at once precipitated the conclusion. 
As soon as he had received it, he was privately married to 
Anne by Rowland Lee, one of his chaplains ; the marriage 
being kept secret, no doubt, lest it should be known at 
Rome before the Bulls for Cranmer’s consecration were 
sent off to England. This irrevocable step was taken on 
January 25, 1533. 

In the beginning of March the long-expected Bulls, the 
last that Henry ever solicited, arrived; and on March 
30, Cranmer was formally consecrated. As Henry had 
no longer any reason for courting the favour of the Pope, 
the final step for settling the divorce was now taken in 
Parliament. It was declared that ‘the Crown of England 
was imperial, and the nation a complete body in itself, 
with full power to give justice in all causes, spiritual and 
temporal: appeals to Rome,’ it was added, ‘had been 
found to be fruitful in expense and annoyance, and delay 
and miscarriage of justice’ ; therefore it was enacted that 
all causes, whether they concerned the King or any of his 


Catherine Divorced 161 


subjects, were in future to be determined in England, 
notwithstanding any inhibitions or Bulls or appeals to 
Rome ; and any one procuring a Bull hereafter was liable 
to the penalties of the Law of Provisors.? 

Nothing now remained but to pronounce the formal 
divorce of Henry and Catherine. Cranmer was accor- 
dingly authorised to hold a court in the monastery of 
Dunstable, near Catherine’s residence at Ampthill, and 
finally dispose of the question that had disturbed the 
peace of Europe for six years. Sentence of divorce was 
of course speedily pronounced ; for the question had been 
practically decided years before, and only awaited a judge 
with full authority to declare that the marriage, as con- 
tracted in opposition to the laws of God, had been, ab 
initio, null and void. A few days afterwards Cranmer 
confirmed Henry’s marriage with Anne; and on May 28, 
the new Queen was conducted to the Tower with a 
gorgeous state and magnificence ; ‘So comely done as 
never was like in any time nigh to our remembrance.’ ? 
On Whit Sunday (June 1), she was solemnly crowned in 
Westminster Abbey. Four months later, on September 7, 
she gave birth to her famous daughter, Elizabeth, to 
the intense joy of Henry, who at once caused her to be 
created Princess of Wales ; and rejoiced in her birth not 
only as strengthening the succession, but as a token that 
Heaven had not disapproved of a marriage which many 
of his subjects had threatened with the curse of God. « 

All these occurrences in the political world were 
favourable to the progress of the Reformation in England. 
The long-established Papal supremacy had been abolished ; 
the power of the Church had been seriously curtailed ; and 
though Henry still remained as sincerely attached as ever 
to the old theology, the persons of chief influence around 
him, Cromwell, Cranmer, and Anne Boleyn, were all more 


* Statutes of the Realm. 
? See Cranmer’s Letter to Hawkins (Remazns, Letter 14), 


Lee 


162 Latimer at West Kington 


or less favourably disposed towards the doctrines of the 
Reformers. 

Perhaps it was this which emboldened Latimer in the 
spring of 1533 to break the silence which he had observed 
since his return from London, and to preach more clearly 
and openly than before against the superstitions and 
abuses which constituted almost the whole of the popular 
religion of those around him. In March, 1533, at the 
invitation of several priests, he preached in Bristol on the 
second Sunday in Lent (March 9), in the Churches of St. 
Nicholas and the Black Friars ; and on the following day 
in St. Thomas’s Church. Whether from the unusual bold- 
ness of his words, or the peculiarly excitable temperament 
of his hearers, his sermons produced a wonderful effect. 
All Bristol rang with them ; and the citizens were divided 
into two rival factions, who fiercely attacked or boldly 
defended the Reformer’s opinions, as they were themselves 
disposed to reject or to favour the Reformation. The 
hostile party among the priests were alarmed at this out- 
break of zeal, and determined, if possible, to prevent its 
growth by the interposition of authority. Complaint was 
made to Convocation in a letter which explains to us the 
tenor of Latimer’s sermons in Bristol. 


‘Right Worshipful Master, it may like you to be adver- 
tised, that upon the second Sunday this Lent, at Bristol, 
there preached one Latimer. And, as it is reported, he 
hath done much hurt among the people by his said preach- 
ing, and soweth errors. His fame is there, and in most 


parts of the diocese. He said that our Lady was a sinner, » 


and that she ought not to be worshipped of the people, 
nor any of the saints. Exclaimeth upon pilgrimage. And 
also where the Gospel the said Sunday, specifying of the 
woman of Canaan’s calling upon Christ to help her, and 


t Peter Vannes, Archdeacon of Worcester, is conjectured by Strype 
to be the person here addressed. 


\ 


; 


é 


Brown Accuses Latimer 163 


how the disciples prayed for her, saying, “Send her away, 
because she crieth after us” ; the same Latimer declared, 
in his said preaching, that the woman of Canaan, by the 
desire and prayer of the disciples of Christ for her, rather 
fared the worse than the better. And divers other 
opinions vented in his preaching, fuily against the deter- 
mination of the Church, whereby he hath very sore infect 
the said town of Bristol, as it is reported. The said 
Latimer is assigned for to preach again at Bristol, the 
Wednesday in Easter week, except by your commandment 
unto the Dean there, he be denied and forbid to preach. 
The good Catholic people in the said town do abhor all 
such his preaching. The fellow dwelleth within the 
diocese of Bath’ [Salisbury], ‘and certain times cometh 
into my Lord’s diocese of Worcester. This doing such 
hurt, I am required to certify your mastership of this 
wretched being in his abusions ; and that ye would write 
unto the Dean of Bristol, to forbid and deny the said 
Latimer to preach there, or within any part of my said 
Lord’s diocese. . . . This xviii. day of March. 
““ RICHARD Brown, Priest.” * 


The suggestions of the writer were speedily put in 
execution. On March 26, it was complained in Con- 
vocation, that notwithstanding his submission and promise 
of obedience in the previous year, Latimer had again 
preached in Bristol against the teaching of the Church.; 
and, at the instance of Gardiner, a copy of his submission 
was transmitted to Bristol, to be employed against him in 
any way that might seem most advisable.2, This was of 
course a ‘lame and impotent conclusion,’ not likely to 
arrest Latimer in his career ; but Convocation was pain- 
fully sensible that its power was now abridged. A more 
effectual expedient, however, was still within their reach ; 


* Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. i. p. 248, from Cleopatra, E. V 
? Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 755. 


164 Latimer at West Kington 


and though the Mayor himself had appointed Latimer to 
preach again in Bristol at Easter, a prohibition was issued 
forbidding him to preach anywhere within the diocese of 
Worcester, without the Bishop’s licence ; and thus he was 
for the time effectually silenced. Having thus made sure 
that their dreaded opponent could not reply to them, the 
good Catholics of Bristol next procured ‘ certain preachers 
to blatter against him’ ; Wilson, one of Henry’s chaplains ; 
Powell, an ardent upholder of the Papal supremacy ; and 
above all, Hubbardin, the great clerical buffoon of the 
day,* whose vulgar oratory and frantic gesticulations were 
expected to captivate the ignorant populace. 

Latimer was denounced as a heretic, and almost an 
atheist ; and his opinions were perverted and misrepre- 
sented in the grossest manner. He did not lack defenders, 
however, and the controversy in Bristol became daily 


* So Foxe represents him ; and as it is the fashion at the present 
time to ridicule Foxe and to doubt his veracity, I may mention that in 
the Rolls House there is a memorial from the inhabitants of Bristol to 
the Mayor, complaining of the indecent extravagance of Hubbardin’s 
language in his sermons. They depose that by way of illustrating (!) 
the doctrine of the Trinity, he ‘compared Christ to a foal, an ass, a bolt, 
a faggot-stick, and such other naughty sayings beside and contrary to 
all good Scripture, and such villainy that abhorreth the ears of Christian 
people.’—Chapter House Papers, A. 1.9. 117. The following is a letter 
from Hubbardin to Cromwell : ‘Good worshipful Master Cromwell, my 
duty presupposed ; I beseech your mastership according to your 
wisdom to ponder and consider the intent and purpose of those makers 
that so grievously accused me to your mastership and other of the King’s 
honourable council: beseeching you also to conceive none ill opinion 
nor to bear any grudge towards me, but to stand as indifferent betwixt 
the friar and me [what friar ?] to the time that ye be certified of the 
truth of most part of the headsand commonalty of Bristow, both of my 
preaching, and of the dissension and trouble that Latimer, with this 
friar and two other priests, hath made in Bristow : that if it please your 
mastership to Iet me have a copy of the letters and sayings by the 
which they accuse me, I trust to make an answer, either by word or 
writing, and by the testimonial of the chief of Bristow, that I never 
preached such words nor such sayings as hath been laid to my charge ; 
as best knoweth God, who ever preserve you in your goodness, to His 
honour and most pleasure. 

‘ By your bedman, 
‘ WILLIAM HYBERDEN, Priest,’ 

State Paper Office, Miscellaneous Papers and Letters, vol. xviii. 


An Opponent Convinced 165 


more embittered, and threatened to endanger the peace 
of the town. Nothing was heard but the din of theological 
discussion. He had attacked pilgrimages, and other 
superstitious practices ; and his opponents exhausted their 
ingenuity in devising arguments in their defence. Some 
of their arguments were amusingly whimsical. Pilgrimages, 
for example, were defended from the passage of Scripture 
which promises to reward a hundred-fold all who forsake 
house and brethren for Christ’s sake. ‘Whosoever goeth 
on pilgrimage to John Thorne, to our Lady of Walsingham, 
to Saint Anne in the Wood,’ so Dr. Powell argued, ‘left 
his father and mother and brethren for the time that he 
was from home ; therefore our Lord’s promise applied to 
him, and therefore, let him put in the box at the shrine of 
the saint, whatever he would, he should receive a hundred 
times as much more in the present world, and in the 
world to come everlasting life!’ 

Latimer was naturally indignant at being deprived of 
any opportunity of defending himself, and explaining his 
real opinions. He brought his opponents before the 
Mayor and Council, and challenged them to establish 
any of the accusations they so freely launched against 
him, but they made no answer; ‘they had both place 
and time,’ he complains, ‘to slander me and to belie me, 
but they had neither place nor time to hear me, when I 
was ready to justify all that I had said.’?- One of his 
adversaries, however, was bold enough to hold com- 
munication with him; John Hilsey, Prior of the Black 
Friars, came and discussed his teaching with him, and was 
so satisfied with his explanation of his doctrines, that he 
became his friend, and was subsequently one of his most 
efficient supporters in. promoting the Reformation in 
England.3 


* Chapter House Papers, A. I. 7, p. 157, fragment of a letter of 
Latimer’s. 

2 Chapter House Papers ; an unfinished letter of Latimer’s. 

3 Letters on the Suppression of the Monasteries. 


166 Latimer at West Kington 


At last the disturbance in Bristol became so formidable 
as to attract the notice of Cromwell ; and, in the beginning 
of July, Commissioners were appointed to investigate the 
whole proceedings, and to report to the Council. Latimer’s 
opponents had allowed their zeal to outrun their discre- 
tion ; in denouncing his heresy, they had made themselves 
amenable to the law. They had condemned the recent 
legislation of Parliament, and had censured Henry’s 
divorce, and his marriage with Anne Boleyn. Powell had 
even gone so far as to declare that Henry, by putting 
away his first wife, and marrying another without the 
dispensation of the Church, ‘corrupted and infected the 
people with evil example of living’ ; and Hubbardin had 
maintained the supremacy and _ infallibility of the Papal 
See, with sundry oblique reflections on the proceedings of 
the King and the Parliament, in such a manner as to 
occasion no little offence and grief to all loyal subjects in 
Bristol. The Commissioners examined many witnesses, 
and sent voluminous evidence to Cromwell, much of which 
is still preserved among the State Papers. The champions 
of the Church began to discover, to their sad discomfiture, 
that the good old days, when a heretic might be pleasantly 
hunted to death, were gone. Already the legislation of 
Parliament had completely altered the position of the 
Church in England, and the clergy were no longer able to 
carry matters with so high a hand. The Mayor of Bristol 
caused several of the priests who had been the most 
vehement to be apprehended and imprisoned ; others 
found it convenient to disappear for a time from the © 
neighbourhood ; Hubbardin’s vulgar eloquence could not 
save him from the humiliation of being sent to jail ; and, 
on the whole, Latimer’s enemies were driven with disgrace 
from the field.? 


t ‘The sayings of Mr. Hubberdin and Dr. Powell in the pulpit’— 
Rolls, Chapter House Papers, A. 1.9, p. ITI, etc. 
2 Bristol Chronicle ; quoted in Sayer’s History of Bristol, vol. ii. p. 218. 


Latimer’s Victory 167 


In every point they were foiled. They had procured a 
prohibition against his preaching without the licence of 
the Bishop of the diocese in which Bristol was situated ; 
but Cranmer. gave him licence to preach anywhere within 
the province of Canterbury ; and he seems to have been 
again permitted to make a public exposition in Bristol of 
the doctrines which had excited so much controversy. 
Nor was this all; the antagonists of Latimer had rendered 
themselves objects of suspicion in their turn to Cromwell 
and Cranmer, and the latter hesitated for some time to 
allow even Hilsey to preach in the province of Canter- 
bury, until he was satisfied that he had not offended 
against the Royal prerogative, as Hubbardin and Powell 
had done.t According to a local chronicler, Cranmer 
visited Bristol in the autumn, and remained there several 
days, ‘reforming of many things that were amiss, and 
preaching in St. Augustine’s Abbey, and other places.’ ? 
We can imagine how Latimer must have felt comforted 
by the presence of a friendly adviser, into whose ear he 
could pour the story of all his wrongs, and on whose 
support he could confidently rely in all difficulties. One 
favour only was wanting to complete Latimer’s victory. 
His antagonists had been silenced ; he had been restored 
to full liberty as a preacher; but the King might have 
been prejudiced against him by the reports which his 
enemies maliciously circulated, and he was anxious to 
have an opportunity of again preaching before him, to 
show how much he had been misrepresented and belied.3 
Even this wish he was enabled to gratify, through the 
assistance of Cranmer, who was anxious, for his own sake, 
to convince Henry that he had not been guilty of any 
indiscretion in granting Latimer free licence to preach 
anywhere within the province of Canterbury, in spite of 
the prohibition of any of the suffragan bishops. 

® Cranmer’s Remains, Letter xxix. 


2 Bristol Chronicle ; quoted in Sayer’s Memoirs of Bristol, vol. ii. p. 215. 
3 Latimer’s Letter to Morice, Remains, p. 366. 


168 Latimer at West Kington 


This fierce six months’ controversy was not without its 
beneficial influence upon Latimer’s theology. It had 
snapped a few more of the bonds by which he was still 
held fast to the old traditional doctrinal system, which he 
was so loath to leave. It made him feel how untenable 
was the position to which he had so fondly clung; how 
utterly baseless was his cherished belief, that all that was 
required was to purge the Church of a few gross abuses 
that had sprung up, in the course of ages, around her 
venerable creeds and her devout ritual. It has become 
customary of late for men to regret what they call the 
extreme and unnecessary violence which accompanied the 
Reformation, and to wish that the Reformers had con- 
tented themselves with stripping away what was manifestly 
false and superstitious, without introducing such sweeping 
and radical changes into the doctrine and worship of the 
Church. The history of Latimer shows the groundlessness 
of this superficial remark. Never was Reformer more 
eager to retain every belief and practice which could 
plead any sanction of antiquity in its favour, or more 
careful to guard himself against the suspicion that he was 
opposing the legitimate use of any custom, while he was 
denouncing its abuse ; yet his caution in no way disarmed 
the violence of his opponents; every petty abuse was a 
rich source of revenue to some ecclesiastical fraternity, 
and the most modest proposals for a Reformation of 
religion were denounced as the results of malicious and 
almost diabolical hatred of the truth. 

The sermons of Latimer, which excited the ferment in 
Bristol, have not been preserved, but his defence of his 
opinions against the attacks of Powell, and his letters on 
the same subject to Hubbardin and Morice, have fortu- 
nately come down to us, and afford us an interesting view 
of his opinions at this time, at which we shall glance before 
passing on to consider the remainder of his career as rector 
of West Kington. Hubbardin had condemned the new 


Latimer and His Accusers 169 


learning as being of the devil, and not of God, and had had 
the effrontery to allege, in proof of his assertion, that the 


_ professors of the new learning lived naughtily, and were 


in the habit of persecuting priests. Latimer indignantly 
replied :— 

‘Your assertions are great blasphemies, and abominable 
lies, injurious both to God and His word, and (I fear) sin 
against the Holy Ghost. Ye call the Scripture the new 
learning, which I am sure is older than any learning which 
you wot to be the old. I pray you, was not the Scripture, 
if ye would contend, before your most ancient doctors, that 
ye can allege to have written of it? Was it not, afore they 
wrote upon it, better received; more purely understood, of 
more mighty working, than it is now, or since they wrote 
upon it? In St. Paul’s time, when there were no writers 
upon the New Testament, but that the plain story was then 
newly put forth, were there not more converted by (I dare 
boldly say) two parties than there be at this hour, I will 
not say Christian men, but that profess the name of Christ ? 
Is it not now the same Word as it was then? Is not the 
same Schoolmaster that taught them to understand it then 
(which, as St. Peter saith, is the Spirit of God) alive, as 
well as He was then? Doth He not favour us now as well 
as He did then? Have we Him not now, as well as we 
had then? ... If you will say that you condemn not the 
Scripture, but Tindale’s translation, therein ye show your- 
self contrary to your words, for ye have condemned it in 
all other common tongues ; so that it is plain that it is the 
Scripture, and not the translation that ye bark against, calling 
it new learning. * 

Powell’s accusations were more voluminous, and had 
some better foundation in fact, than Hubbardin’s shameless 
diatribe. He had accused Latimer of asserting that the 
Virgin Mary was a sinner ; and Latimer thus explains what 
he had taught on a subject, which has always been the 

® Latimer’s Remains, pp. 317-321. 


170 Latimer at West Kington 


centre of so much corruption and superstition. He had 
referred to the matter because some ‘ priests had given so 
much to our Lady of devotion without judgment, as though 
she had not needed Christ to save her. To prove Christ 
her Saviour, to make Christ a whole Saviour of all that be 
or shall be saved, I reasoned after this manner, that either 
she was a sinner or no sinner ; if she were a sinner, then 
she was redeemed or delivered from sin by Christ, as other 
sinners be ; if she were no sinner then she was preserved 
from sin by Christ ; so that Christ saved her, and was her 
necessary Saviour, whether she sinned or no.’ Some of the 
Fathers had maintained that the Virgin was not without 
sin, but on that point Latimer refused to enter into disgus- 
sion; he was willing to adhere to the common belief, but 
to his purpose it was quite immaterial to prove that she 
was or was not a sinner; in either case she still needed ~ 
Christ as her Saviour. But ‘what need you to speak of 
this ?’ his opponents asked. 

‘Great need,’ he replied ; ‘when men cannot be content 
that she was a creature saved, but as it were a Saviouress,* 
not needling salvation, it is necessary to set her in her 
degree, to the glory of Christ, Creator and Saviour of all 
that be or shall be saved. I go not about to make our 
Lady a sinner, but to have Christ her Saviour. I would 
be as loth to dishonour our Lady as they, for verily she is 
worthy to be honoured. But they should both please and 
honour our Lady much better, to leave their sinful living, 
and keep themselves from sinfulness, as our Lady did, than 
so sinfully to lie to make our Lady no sinner : which, if 
they do not, they shall go to the devil certainly, though 
they believe that our Lady was no sinner, never so surely.’ 

He had been accused of speaking disrespectfully of the 
Ave Maria. 

® ‘There is an anthem sung in Bristol, wherein she is called Salva- 


trix ac redemptrix. Fragment of a letter from Latimer, in Chapter 
House Papers, A. 1. 7, p. 158. 


The Ave Maria 171 


‘T never denied it,’ he rejoins; ‘I know it was a heavenly 
saluting or greeting of our Lady; but yet it is not properly 
a prayer, as the Lord’s Prayer is. Saluting or greeting, 
lauding or praising, is not properly praying. The angel 
was sent to greet our Lady, and to annunciate and show 
the good-will of God towards her (and therefore it is called 
the Annunciation of our Lady); and not to pray to her. 
Shall the Father of heaven pray to our Lady? When the 
angel spake it, it was not properly a prayer : and is it not 
the same thing now that it was then? But as I deny not 
that we may say the Ave Maria (though we be not bidden 
of God as the angel was), yet it is but a superstition to 
think that a Pater Noster cannot be well said without an 
Ave Maria at its heel; and to teach men to say twenty Ave 
Marias for one Pater Noster, is not to speak the Word of 
God. One Ave Maria well said, and devoutly, with affec- 
tion, sense, and understanding, is better than twenty-five 
said superstitiously. For we fantasy as though the very 
work and labour of flummering the Ave Maria is very 
acceptable to our Lady, and the more, the more acceptable ; 
not passing’ [regarding] ‘how they be said, but that they 
be said. ... The devil is crafty, and we frail and prone 
to superstition and idolatry.’ 

He had maintained, so it was alleged, that saints were 
not to be honoured. 

‘The word saints,’ he explained, ‘ was diversely taken of 
the vulgar people ; images of saints are called saints; and 
inhabiters of heaven are called saints. Now by honouring 
of saints is meant praying to saints. Take honouring so’ 
[in this sense], ‘and images for saints, so saints are not to 
be honoured ; that is to say, dead images are not to be 
prayed unto: for they have neither ears to hear withal, nor 
tongues to speak withal, nor heart to think withal. They 
can neither help me nor mine ox; neither my head nor 
my tooth ; nor work any miracle for me, one no more than 
another. And yet I showed the good use of them to be 


172 Latimer at West Kington 


laymen’s books, as they be called, reverently to look upon 
them, to remember the things that are signified by them. 
And yet I would not have them so costly and curiously 
gilded and decked, that the quick image of God (for whom 
Christ shed His blood, and to whom whatsoever is done 
Christ reputeth it done to Himself) lack necessaries, and 
be unprovided for by that occasion ; for then the layman 
doth abuse his book. A man may read upon his book, 
though it be not very curiously gilded ; and in the day- 
time a man may behold it without many candles, if he be 
not blind. Now I say, there be two manner of mediators, 
one by way of redemption, another by way of intercession ; 
and I said, that these saints, that is to say, images called 
saints, be mediators neither way. 

‘As touching pilgrimages, I said, that all idolatry, super- 
stition, error, false faith, and hope in the images, must be 
pared away, before they can be well done; household 
looked upon, poor Christian people provided for, restitu- 
tions made, all ordinance of God discharged, or ever they 
can be well done. They shall never be required of us, 
though they be never done; and yet idolatry may be 
committed in doing them. 

“As touching the saints in heaven, 1 said, they be not our 
mediators by way of redemption ; for so Christ alone is our 
Mediator and theirs both: so that the blood of martyrs 
hath nothing to do by way of redemption; the blood of 
Christ is enough for a thousand worlds. But by way of 
intercession, saints in heaven may be mediators, and pray 
for us: as I think they do when we call not upon them ; 
for they be charitable, and need no spurs; and we have no 
open bidding of God in Scripture to call upon them, as we 
have to call upon God; nor yet we may call upon them 
with any diffidence or mistrust in God; for God is more 
charitable, more merciful, more able, more ready to help 
than them all. . . . The saints were not saints by praying 
to saints, but by believing in Him that made them saints ; 


Latimer on Purgatory 173 


and as they were saints, so may we be saints; yea, there 
be many saints that never prayed to saints. And yet I 
deny not but we may pray to saints; but rather to Him, 
which can make us saints, which calleth us to Him, biddeth 
us call upon Him, promiseth help, cannot deceive us and 
break His promise. . . . The chiefest honouring of saints 
is to know their holy living, and to follow them as they 
followed Christ.’ 

It was said that he had denied the existence of purgatory. 
But he answers :— 

‘I showed the state and condition of them that be in 
purgatory ; therefore I denied it not; they have charity so 
that they cannot lose it; they cannot dishonour God ; they 
can neither displease God, nor be displeased with God ; 
cannot be dissevered from God ; cannot die, nor be in peril 
of death ; cannot be damned, nor be in peril of damnation ; 
cannot but be in surety of salvation.’ 

And then he adds, with his usual ready humour :— 

‘J had rather be in purgatory than in the Bishop of 
London’s prison, for divers causes. 

‘First. In this I might die bodily for lack of meat and 
drink : in that I could not. 

‘Item. In this I might die ghostly for fear of pain, or 

ack of good counsel : there I could not. 

* Ite. In this I might be in peril and danger of death : 
in that I could not. 

‘Iiem, In this I might murmur and grudge against God : 
in that I could not. 

“Item. In this I might be judged to perpetual prison, as 
they call it : in that I could not. 

‘Item. In this I might be craftily handled: in that I 
could not. 

‘Item. In this I might be brought to bear a fagot: in 
that I could not. 

‘Item. In this my lord and his chaplains might manacle 
me by night : in that they could not. 


174 Latimer at West Kington 


‘Ilem. In this they might strangle me, and say that I 
hanged myself :* in that they could not. 

‘Ergo. I had rather to be there than here. For though 
the fire be called never so hot, yet if the Bishop’s two 
fingers’ [i.e., episcopal benediction] ‘can shake away a 
piece, a friar’s cowl another part, and scala cali ? altogether 
I will never found abbey, college, nor charity for that 
purpose. 

‘ Provision for purgatory hath brought thousands to hell. 
Debts have not been paid ; restitution of evil-gotten goods 
and lands hath not been made; Christian people are 


neglected and suffered to perish ; last wills unfulfilled and 


broken ; God’s ordinances set aside. Thus we have gone 
to hell with masses, dirges, and ringing of many a bell. 
And unless we do what God hath commanded us, though 
our soul-priests sing till they be blear-eyed, say till they 
have worn their tongues to the stumps, neither their 
singingsnor their sayings shall bring us out of hell, whither 
we shall go for contemning of God’s forbiddings. Pur- 
gatory’s iniquity hath replenished hell, and left heaven 
almost empty. If purgatory were purged of all that it 
hath gotten by setting aside restitution, and robbing of 
Christ, it would be but a poor purgatory ; so poor, that it 
should not beable to feed so fat, and trick up so many idle 
and slothful lubbers.’ 

These were the boldest words that Latimer had yet 
~uttered, and it is not difficult to understand that they 
would awaken an energetic response in the hearts of the 
good citizens of Bristol, who had so long been pillaged by 
hordes of corrupt ecclesiastics. Every one suffered by 
the abuses of the Church ; the poorest were not exempt 


t Alluding to Richard Hunne, who was found hanged in his cell, and 
whom the inquest acquitted of suicide. Foe, vol. iv. p. 191. 

? A Church of the Virgin Mary at Rome, so called: masses sung at 
the altar in that Church for the souls in purgatory were so efficacious 
that they were immediately released from pain and passed into the 
everlasting joys of heaven. 


The Spirit of the Clergy 175 


from plunder ; every occurrence in life was considered a 
fitting occasion for adding something to the inexhaustible 
treasures which the clergy too often spent in indolence 
and luxury. Hence the indignation with which they 
turned upon any preacher, who ventured to denounce those 
profitable abuses which had been for ages the fruitful 
source of their enormous revenues. ‘This is the wasp 
that doth sting them,’ said Latimer, with his usual homely 
shrewdness, ‘and maketh them to swell.’ The times had 
somewhat changed ; and they had experienced a humilia- 
ting defeat in their attempts to silence and punish Latimer ; 
Parliament had somewhat encroached upon their previous 
glorious privilege of persecuting all who exposed their 
ignorance or denounced their corruption ; but the perse- 
cuting spirit still remained strong in them, and unable to 
gratify it in any other way, they vented it in some wretched 
doggerel, the sentiment of which is more readily perceiv- 
able than either the rhyme or the reason. Two stanzas 
will probably satisfy the taste of the reader :— 


‘Oh ! thou ravishing wolf in a lamb’s skin, 
What mischief increaseth daily thee by! 
For many souls to the Devil thou dost win, 
Beseeching of thy abominable heresy. 
Yet faithful men thy words may defy; 
The which is more to thy rebuke and shame 
So to impair the poor Christian name 


‘The blessed pure Virgin and mother to Christ, 
Thou saidst in preaching a sinner was she ; 
And therein like a false heretick thou liest ; 
For she is a holy virgin, and ever shall be. 
Pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te. 
This text Christ said by her, as in Scripture is told. 
Wherefore it is pity thou shouldst die for cold.’ * 


In October of this year, Latimer was again in London, at 
the invitation of Cranmer ; and on the 3rd of that month 
he preached in the church of the Augustine Friars. 


* The curious reader may see the whole in Strype, Eccl. Mem., 
pt. 2, p. 180. 


176 Latimer at West Kington 


Stokesley had, indeed, by an edict of April 24th, in this 
year, interdicted all preachers, seculars or regulars, from 
officiating anywhere within his diocese, whether in places 
exempt or not exempt, without his special licence, * and 
had subsequently inhibited Latimer by name, on account 
of his ‘fraudulent and pestiferous preaching, whereby 
he corrupteth the people, and seduceth them from the 
received doctrine of the Church.’ Latimer, however, had 
Cranmer’s express licence to preach in any part of the 
province of Canterbury ; and the prior of the Augustinian 
Monastery, George Brown (afterwards the first Protestant 
Archbishop of Dublin), was favourable to the Reformed 
doctrines ; and therefore Stokesley’s thunder was not 
much regarded. Stokesley was, of course, enraged at this 


fresh contempt of his authority; and the next day he 


issued astillmore peremptory inhibition, strictly forbidding, 
‘under the pain and penalty contained in the law and 
provincial constitutions,’ any of his clergy from allowing 
the said Hugh Latimer to preach within any of their 
churches or religious houses, till he had appeared before 
the Bishop and had been purged of his default.? 

This summary inhibition was duly executed on the 
following Sunday (October 5th), in the church of St. 
Thomas the Apostle, of which Wilson, Latimer’s old 
antagonist at Bristol, was incumbent; so that due justice 
would be given to the episcopal mandate. Latimer was 
now, however, beyond all fear of injury from Stokesley ; 
he was high in royal favour, and was engaged in con- 
junction with Cromwell and Cranmer in unravelling the 
mysterious case of Elizabeth Barton, the maid of Kent.3 


t Stokesley’s Register. A copy is in the Rolls, A.I. 15, p. 164. 

2 Chapter House Papers, A, I. 15, p. 168. 

3 He was also one of nine commissioners to inquire into Stokes- 
ley’s treatment of Patmore. The other eight were—Cranmer, the 
Lord Chancellor ; Cromwell ; Drs, Thyrleby and Townsend; Skypp, 
the Queen’s almoner ; Dr. Barnes ; Dr. Hilsey, provincial of the Black 
Friars ; and Mr. Lattymer, the King’s Chappelaine. Foxe, vol. v. app. 


! 
M 


{ 


R 


ie 


The Maid of Kent 177 


The story of this once famous impostor may be briefly 
told. Originally a servant in the village of Aldington, she 
suffered from severe fits of epilepsy, in the paroxysms of 
which she uttered incoherent and unintelligible sentences, 
her tongue meanwhile protruding from her mouth, and 
her eyes almost starting from their sockets. The charity 
of the present day would consign her at once to the care 
of the parish doctor; but in that unsophisticated age, she 
was looked upon with awe as one inspired by the power of 
the Holy Ghost. A neighbouring monk, Edward Bockyng, 
sagacious enough to see the use to which such a person 
might be applied, contrived to make her the subject of a 
miraculous cure, and thereby attracted crowds of pilgrims 
from all quarters to his church. The maid proved herself 
an apt pupil, and skilfully promoted the deception; she 
pretended to have visions and revelations of heaven, hell 
and purgatory; and soon came to be recognised as a 
regular medium through which the will of God was made 
known to men. In the controversies that emerged touch- 
ing the royal divorce, the Papal supremacy, and the spread 
of heresy, her advisers, the monks of Canterbury, eagerly 
availed themselves of her reputation to defend their cause 
by the supposed advocacy of Heaven. She denounced the 
vengeance of God against the proposed divorce of 
Catherine, and against all who laboured in any way to 
abridge the liberties of the Church. She declared that 
Henry would not live a month if he married Anne; and 
when time had falsified her prediction, she added by way 
of explanation, that God had rejected him from the 
kingdom, although he was still, like Saul, permitted to 
lead a dishonoured life. 

In short, the Nun was the popular mouthpiece of the 
Popish party, and the centre of the opposition to the 
policy of Cromwell as well as to the preaching of Latimer 


-and Cranmer. She had been in communication with 
Wolsey and Warham: and it was her influence, it was 


12 


178 Latimer at West Kington 


alleged, which had arrested their zeal in Henry’s cause, 
and induced them to thwart the promotion of the divorce. 
Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More had both listened with 
apparent respect to her revelations. She was in corre- 
spondence even with the Pope, whom she implored, as he 
would avoid the imminent anger of God, to hinder the 
royal marriage with Anne Boleyn. The preaching friars all 
over England were her champions; and, as she had un- 
questionably exercised a formidable influence in opposing 
and retarding Henry’s marriage, so there seemed grave 
reason for suspecting that under cover of reverence for 
this new oracle, a dangerous conspiracy was being organ- 
ised against his life and crown.* 

In July, 1533, accordingly, Cranmer summoned her 
before him, examined her, and sent her for further 
examination to Cromwell. And in November, Cranmer, 
Latimer, and Cromwell were again employed for some 
time at Lambeth, unravelling the complicated conspiracies 
so ingeniously woven during the last four years. Her 
accomplices, Bockyng, Dering, and others, were also 
arrested, and examined. For some time they remained 


resolutely silent: but fear, and probably torture, at last 


overcame their courage, and they confessed all ; and then 
it was no longer doubtful that a widely ramified plot 
existed to dethrone Henry and elevate his daughter Mary 
to the throne in hisstead. Many persons were implicated : 
even Mary and Catherine had been in communication 
with the Nun, though perhaps ignorant of the whole 
purposes of the conspirators ; and when Parliament 
reassembled, the punishment of those concerned in this 
treasonable imposture was one of the chief matters that 
occupied their attention. 


After finishing his labours in connection with the Nun f 


™ See, on the subject of the Nun of Kent, Chapter House Papers, A. I. 
13; Cranmer’s Letters, No. 83, etc. ; Froude, vol. ii. p. 164, etc. ; 
Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII. cap. 12; Burnet’s Documents — 
etc, 


‘ 
; 


2 


Better Prospects 179 


of Kent, Latimer returned to spend the winter of 1533 
among his parishioners. And as at the close of another 
year he reviewed the course by which God was leading 
him, he would have abundant cause for thankfulness for 
the past, and hope for the future. The year had, during 
its course, brought upon him considerable annoyance, 
obloquy, and even danger. At one time it seemed as if he 
were about to be involved in the same troubles that had 
threatened him in 1532; but the dangers had been dis- 
persed; his enemies had been disappointed of their 
vengeance ; and the year which began in cloud, ended in 
hope and sunshine. The path before him seemed now 
bright and clear. On every side the adherents of the 
Reformation were increasing in numbers. It was no 
longer so dangerous to advocate the removal of abuses in 
the Church, now that the power of the clergy had been 
curtailed. NHenry’s prejudices had been rudely shaken by 
his long experience of the duplicity of the Papal See, and 
his recent detection of the treasons hatched against him 
by the more zealous advocates of the Papal supremacy ; 
and surrounded as he was by advisers friendly to the 
Reformation, it might be hoped that he would lend the 
sanction of his authority to the general desire for a reform 
of religion. It was with happy prospects, therefore, that 
Latime+ began the year 1534. For ten years he had 
known little but disappointment and fierce controversy ; 
he now entered upon a career of wider usefulness and 
almost unalloyed prosperity, which terminated only when 
he resigned his bishopric on the passing of the Bloody 
Statute of 1539. It would be an additional source of 
gratification to him if, as has been conjectured, it was at 
this very period that the University bestowed on him the 
degree of Doctor of Divinity. 

Cranmer had not forgotten Latimer’s urgent request to 


* Kennet, in Lansdowne MSS. 979; there is no record in Cam- 
bridge, 


180 Latimer at West Kington 


be permitted to preach before the King, and clear himself 
of the charges so recklessly brought against him by his 
antagonists at Bristol. And seizing a favourable oppor- 
tunity, he ‘humbly desired and sued unto his highness,’ 
to allow Latimer to preach before him all the Wednesdays 
in the ensuing Lent: a request which was probably 
granted without much difficulty, as Latimer had already 
secured a good position in the royal favour. Cranmer lost 
no time in communicating to Latimer the result of his 
petition to Henry, and having some doubt that the 
preacher’s zeal might possibly lead him into indiscreet 
violence, he accompanied his intimation with some sage 
advice, so characteristically cautious that it deserves to be 
quoted almost entire. 

‘These be to certify you of the King’s pleasure, how that 
his Grace is contented that ye shall be admitted to preach 
before him on all the Wednesdays of this next Lent. 
Whereupon I think it very expedient, for divers considera- 
tions moving me thereto, to admonish you of certain things 
in no wise to be neglect or omitted on your behalf in time 
of your preaching. . . . First, therefore, take this order (if 
ye will), reading over the book, ye take for your purpose 


some processes’ [passages] ‘of Scripture, the Gospel, — 


Epistle, or any other part of Scripture in the Bible, and 
the same to expound and declare according to the pure 
sense and meaning thereof : wherein, above all things, it 
will be most convenient, that ye do not at all persuade for 
the defence of your own causes and matters lately in con- 
troversy,t but that ye rather do seem utterly to pass over 
those your accusations, than now in that place any sparkle 


or suspicion of grudge should appear to remain in you for — 
the same. This done, that likewise ye be very circumspect — 


This expression helps to determine the date of the letter, which has — 


sometimes been assigned to 1535. A vast variety of concurrent circum- 


f 
: 


stances fixes the Bristol disturbances unquestionably to 1533 ; and — 


Cranmer would hardly have used the expression lately after the year 
1534 ; certainly not in 1535. 


4 


_— a 


At Court Again Se 


to overpass and omit all manner speech, either apertly or 
suspiciously sounding against any special man’s facts, acts, 
manners, or sayings, to the intent your audience have none 
occasion thereby namely to slander your adversaries ; which 
would seem to many that you were void of charity, and so 
much the more unworthy to occupy that room. Neverthe- 
less, if such occasion be given by the Word of God, let none 
offence or superstition be unreprehended, specially if it be 
generally spoken, without affection : 

‘ Furthermore, I would ye should so study to comprehend 
your matters, that in any condition you stand no longer in the 
pulpit than an hour, or an hour and a half at the most ; for 
bylong expense of time the King and the Queen shall perad- 
venture wax so weary at the beginning that they shall have 
small delight to continue throughout with you to the end. 
Therefore let the effect of the premises’ [7.e., the past 
occurrences at Bristol] ‘take no place in your mind, 
specially before this circumspect audience, to the intent 
that you in so doing need not to have any other declara- 
tion hereafter against the misreports of your adversaries. 
And for your further instruction in this behalf, I would ye 
should the sooner come up to London, here to prepare all 
things in a readiness, according to such expectation as is 
had in you.’? 

Cranmer wrote at the same time to the Dean of the 
Chapel Royal, informing him that with the King’s consent 
he had appointed ‘Master Latymer, a man of singular 
learning, virtuous example of living, and sincere preaching 
the Word of God,’ to officiate before the Court on the 
Wednesdays in the ensuing Lent ; and requesting him to 
make arrangement accordingly, and to cancel any previous 
appointment. Sampson, the Dean of the Chapel Royal, 
was by no means elated at the prospect of having Latimer 


? From a volume containing copies of many of Cranmer’s letters, 
Harleian MSS., 6148. This letter was written, I conjecture, at Oxford, 
in the first week of January, 1534. 


ae 


182 Latimer at West Kington 


as preacher on all the Wednesdays in Lent : he had been 
a member of the Convocation which condemned Latimer, 
and it was anything but a pleasure to him to nominate as 
Court preacher the very man whom he had denounced as 
a heretic, and whom he would gladly have silenced alto- 
gether. He sent a reply to Cranmer immediately, as he 
had been desired to do, in which he expresses his willing- 


ness to comply with the King’s orders, without concealing - 


his own total disapprobation of the Archbishop’s proposal. 

‘There is one appointed for the Wednesdays in Lent,’ 
he writes, ‘notwithstanding, if it be the King’s pleasure 
that Latimer shall supply the same, I shall be obedient to 
his pleasure. And to say liberally to your Grace of that man, 
by mytroth, I favour him in my mind for his learning ; I pray 
God it may be moderate (the times are not most pleasant), 
since that his teaching moveth no little dissension among 
the people wheresoever he cometh, the which is either a 
token of new doctrine, or else negligence in not expressing 
of his mind more clearly to the people. ... It is not 
unknown to your Grace that he was much suspect for his 


preaching before all the Convocation, of the which (though ~ 


it be one of the least) I was and am a poor member. 
Wherefore your Grace shall be author of this matter, 
and I no minister except the King shall so command me.’ 

In short, the unhappy Dean consented with the worst 
possible grace, only under a species of compulsion, and as 
it were protesting that he was not to be held responsible 
for any unfortunate consequences that might result from so 
rash a selection of a preacher. 


In January, 1534, therefore, Latimer proceeded to ~ 


London, on a very different errand, and with widely 
different prospects, from those of his previous winter 


* From the State Paper Office. I have quoted the letter at some 
length, as it has never been printed. It bears date January Io, and thus 
confirms Dr. Jenkins’s conjecture, that Cranmer’s Letter (Harl. MSS. 
6148), to which it is a reply, has been erroneously in the copy dated 
Fuly g, instead of Fanuary g. 


ee 


sie + ak eet 


i 


Legislation Against Rome 183 


journey to the metropolis, only two years before. Lent 
began on February 18, and from that day till April 1 he 
would preach once a week before the Court. No notice 
has been preserved of the subjects of these sermons: but 
the themes were doubtless selected after consultation with 
Cranmer and Cromwell, and would be such as the times 
seemed most urgently to require. Whether he profited by 
Cranmer’s advice, and was as cautious and concise in the 
pulpit as that amiable prelate had recommended, may ‘per- 
haps be doubted ; for such discreet reticence was uncon- 
genial to Latimer’s impulsive temperament : but no angry 
controversy followed his preaching, so that his words, how- 
ever bold and uncompromising, must have seemed to his 
audience no bolder than the occasion required. 

For in truth the great crisis was come. The revelations 
of the treason prepared against the King by the dissatisfied 
partisans of Catherine and the Pope, compelled Henry, in 
self-defence, to adopt a more resolute policy than he had at 
first contemplated, and the legislation of Parliament was as 
prompt and decisive as the boldest Reformer could have 
wished. All appeals to Rome, of whatever nature, were 
rigorously prohibited. No bulls for consecration were to 
be any longer procured from the Bishop of Rome, otherwise 
called the Pope ; nor were any persons to be presented, 
nominated, or commended to him for any bishopric within 
the realm. All payments to Rome, pensions, Peter-pence, 
procurations, etc., were tocease. All the power and juris- 
diction hitherto claimed by the Pope were transferred to 
the King. He was constituted visitor of all the religious 
houses, and empowered to inspect and reform them. 
Bishops were to be elected by the Dean and Chapter 
on a Royal recommendation ; and any one refusing or 
delaying to elect and to consecrate in accordance with 
the Sovereign’s orders, was liable to the penalty of a 
premunire. In short, all traces of Papal supremacy in the 


* Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII. cap. 19, 20, 21, ete. 


184 Latimer at West Kington 


\ ; 
Be 
, 

4 


Church, as in the State, were formally abolished : and the - | 


long usurpation of many centuries was at last overthrown. 
The clergy were helpless to oppose these sweeping changes. 
The people had ceased to dread their spiritual censures ; 
and all classes of society had suffered too much from them 


in the arrogance of their prosperity, to feel sympathy for — 


them in their humiliation. The power and spirit of the 
clergy were completely broken ; they lacked the courage to 
make any steady united opposition to Henry’s proposals ; 
and, stifling their rage and indignation as they best could, 
they had to assume the appearance of submission and 
acquiescence. For the dignified clergy who sat in Conyo- 
cation, a more bitter degradation was in store. Like the 
disgraced ministers of an Oriental despot, they were com- 
pelled to commit official suicide, and by their own acts to 
terminate their authority. The all-important question, 
‘whether the Bishop of Rome had, by Scripture, any 
more jurisdiction within the realm of England than any 
other foreign bishop,’ a question which went to the root 
of allthe Papal pretensions, was submitted to Convocation, 
and was decided by an immense majority against the Papal 
claims ; in the Lower House four members only were 
bold enough to vote in favour of the Pope’s proud 
pretensions. * 

It was not from any zeal for the adoption of the doctrines 
of the Reformers, that Parliament and Convo¢ation agreed 
in abolishing all traces of the Papal supremacy in England. 
On the contrary, they had simply thrown off a yoke of 
spiritual ignorance and tyranny, which was no longer com- 
patible with the growing light and freedom of theage ; and 
at the time, Parliament, far from contemplating further 
progress in the direction of a reformation of religion, 
solemnly protested that their proceedings were not to be 
interpreted ‘as if the King and his subjects intended to 
decline, or vary from the congregation of Christ’s Church 

¥ Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii., p. 760. 


( 


Persecution Relaxed 185 


in any things concerning the very articles of the Catholic 
faith of Christendom.’* Parliament, in fact, had assumed 
that it was possible to occupy the untenable position of 
being ‘ Popish, without acknowledging the Pope,’ of ad- 
hering to all the dogmas which had been introduced under 
the sanction of the Papal See, while disowning its authority ; 
a vain delusion which cost Baghud much blood, and which 
even yet ever and again reappears to the perplexity of the 
English Church. Even at the outset, however, Parliament 
considerably relaxed the cruel laws which had counte- 
nanced the persecution of the Reformers. To speak against 
the Bishop of Rome and his pretended authority, or to 
condemn his spiritual laws, was no longer to be reputed 


-heresy. This was one immense step in advance. Persons 


accused of heresy were in future to be proceeded against 
only on the presentment of at least two lawful witnesses. 


q They were to be tried in open court, not in secret ecclesias- 


* tical conclave. They might be baie If found guilty, and 
refusing to abjure, they were not to be burnt without a 
royal writ.2 Persecution was henceforth to be, at all 
events, a public open transaction, in lawful courts, and by 
legal processes. The arbitrary violence of the Ecclesiastical 
Courts was abolished ; and many who had long lain in 
prison, detained on mere suspicion of heresy, in contraven- 
tion of the fundamental privileges of English subjects, were 
now set free. The Nun of Kent, and five monks, her 
accomplices, were convicted of high treason, and executed 
at Tyburn ; and all the beoks of her pretended revelations 
were to be delivered up under severe penalties. Fisher 
and More, who had been in correspondence with the 
impostor, and incurred their Sovereign’s displeasure, 
were arraigned by Parliament, but in the meantime were 
pardoned on submission and apology. 

One important subject still remained to be settled, the 


* Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII. 


2 Ibid. 


186 Latimer at West Kington 


succession to the throne : and an Act was passed limiting 
the succession to Henry’s children by Anne, ‘his lawful 
wife’; and declaring that his former marriage was null 
and void, prohibited in the law of God, and beyond any 
power of Papal dispensation. To do or say anything to 
the slander of Henry’s marriage with Anne was con- 
stituted treason ; and all subjects were required to take 
a solemn oath to observe the succession as thus settled 
by Parliament. It was on March 23, that this important 
statute was passed ;* and on the same day, by a singular 
coincidence, Clement VII., after seven years’ hesitation 
and diplomatic intrigue, at last pronounced his final sen- 
tence in the matter of the divorce, solemnly declaring the 
marriage with Catherine to be valid, and ordering Henry, 
under the highest ecclesiastical censure, to receive her 
again as his wife ; weak words now, which a few years 
before would have struck terror into the boldest heart. 

It is scarcely possible to overestimate the effect of such 
decisive and momentous legislation. The Church of 
England was entirely set free from its ancient allegiance 
to the Papal See. At last the law was supreme in 
England, over all persons, clerical and lay. The tables 
were completely turned upon the clergy ; they had long 
known no master save a foreign ecclesiastical potentate, 
they had scarcely recognised their amenability to the law, 
they had persecuted and imprisoned with impunity ; now 
they felt the strong hand of the King and the Parliament 
upon them, and they were required to make their choice 
between perjury and treason, between renouncing that 
belief in Papal supremacy and infallibility which they had 
long cherished as the corner-stone of their faith, and 
defying the law, and exposing themselves to its penalties. 
It was not yet a Reformation, for Parliament had not 
formally adopted any of the doctrinal tenets of the 
Reformers; but it was a Revolution; and without a 


7 Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII. cap. 22. 


. 


Cromwell and Latimer 187 


revolution no such reformation as the gravity of the times 
required was possible. 

It was impossible that such measures could be passed 
without provoking a strong feeling of opposition in various 
parts of the country. The clergy had, indeed, been cowed 
by Henry’s vigour and determination; but there were 
many amongst them willing to face death rather than 
perjure their consciences, and there were many more 
who, submitting to what seemed inevitable at the time, 
watched their opportunity for regaining the authority of 
which they were thus deprived by violence. Treasonable 
words were whispered in the confessional ; and, over the 
length and breadth of England, the various religious 
orders were, as boldly as they dared, expressing their 
dissatisfaction with the recent legislation. Henry was 
not ignorant of this smouldering discontent ; but he had 
been forced into the line of policy which he adopted ; and 
his safety as well as his dignity required that he should 
pursue it without hesitation, whatever opposition might 
be encountered. It was an anxious time also for Cromwell ; 
for he, more than any other, was responsible for the 
measures of the King. Cranmer did not exaggerate when 
he declared that ‘‘ Cromwell had done more than all others 
together in whatever was effected respecting the Reforma- 
tion of religion and the clergy.’? Cromwell alone had 
any distinct aim ; he alone was pursuing a specific end; 
and hitherto he had found no one able to co-operate with 
him, no one of real power and influence in the country 
who could be relied on to promote his views. 

At last, however, he seemed to have found in Latimer 
the fiend of Se he had been so long in search. The 
two had been much thrown together for some time, and 
had learned to appreciate each other’s merits. Tenmaee 
was clearly a man of real power and ability, whose zeal 
and eloquence could sway the mind of the nation, and 


* Original Letters, p. 15. Parker Society. 


* 


188 Latimer at West Kington 


whose services would be of essential benefit in supporting 
the policy on which the King and his minister had em- 
barked. From this period, accordingly, dates the com- 
mencement of an intimate friendship between Latimer 
and Cromwell, which was of great importance to both, 
and which was doubtless one of the chief causes that 
led to Latimer’s promotion. Not that Latimer had begun 
to court promotion; he was too honest to be the mere 
tool of any minister ; he had too little ambition, and was 
too outspoken to be amere political supporter ; he assisted 
Cromwell most effectually when he was at the same time 
most zealously asserting his own convictions ; he promoted 
the policy of the great statesman most powerfully when 
he was devoting all his eloquence to the denunciation of 
those gross abuses in the Church which he had so long 
laboured to remove. 

Against any possible opposition to these measures, Henry 
and Cromwell adopted every precaution. They had no 
intention to permit any open discussion of their policy, 
or to tolerate any adverse criticisms upon it. The clergy 
might be expected as a body to be hostile, and their 
sermons might dangerously inflame the minds of the dis- 
contented ; therefore, to silence them, an inhibition was 
issued recalling all licences to preach, until those who 
held them appeared before their Bishops, and were 
cautioned not to ‘speak of such matters as touched the 
prince, his laws or succession.’ Preachers likely to be 


troublesome, would, of course, not have their licences — 


renewed ; and thus one fertile source of opposition was 
stopped. In June, a more peremptory proclamation 
appeared, commanding all Bishops and clergy to preach 
every Sunday, ‘that the style, title, and jurisdiction of 
supreme head (so long usurped by the Pope) appertaineth 
only to our crown and dignity royal’; and ordering that 
all prayers, rubrics, and service-books, ‘ wherein the said 
Bishop of Rome is named, or his presumption and proud 


| 


§ 


More and Fisher 189 


pomp and authority preferred, should be utterly abolished 
and razed out, and his name and memory should be never- 
more (except to his contumely and reproach) remembered.’ 
And lest this duty should be evaded, all loyal subjects 
were required to observe whether the clergy complied 
with the proclamation, ‘without any manner of sinister 
addition, wrong interpretation, or painted colour.’? Similar 
instructions were directed to the justices of the peace and 
_ the county magistrates,? and the whole kingdom was placed 
on its guard, like a wakeful garrison, or an army in the 
presence of the foe. For, in spite of his past success, 
Henry knew that he had entered a perilous course ; and 
he was resolved to omit no precaution that prudence 
could dictate in order to prevent resistance, or to restrict 
it within narrow limits. 

It had been ordered by Parliament that all members 
should take the oath to the succession as it had been 
determined by the legislature. Sir Thomas More and 
Bishop Fisher declined to take this oath. They were 
willing indeed to swear to the succession, but they 
objected to certain expressions in the preamble, or 
declined to commit themselves to all that was asserted 
in the Act. The example of two men so notably con- 
spicuous for their great ability and high position, could 
not be overlooked. Cranmer, with his usual gentleness, 
entreated that they might be allowed to take the oath in 
any modified form to which they would consent ;3 but 
this would have been to stultify the whole recent legis- 
lation of Parliament. Efforts were made to induce them 
to swear; but as they remained firm, Henry had no 
alternative but to order them to be imprisoned. 

The proceedings against More fortunately furnish us 
with an interesting glimpse of Latimer at this important 
period, all the more interesting as so few records of his 


* Foxe, vol. v. p. 69. 2 Burnet, vol. vi. p. 106, 
3 Cranmer’s Letiers, No. 105. 


190 Latimer at West Kington 


proceedings at this time have been preserved. More had 
been summoned before the Commissioners at Lambeth 
on April 13, and Cranmer had in vain employed all the 
artifices of his kindly logic to induce him to take the oath 
of succession. While the Commissioners were deliberating 


on the matter, More was asked to go down into the garden - 


of the palace. ‘And thereupon,’ writes he to his daughter 


Roper, ‘I tarried in the old burned chamber that looketh — 


into the garden, and would not go down because of the 
heat. In that time saw I Master Doctor Latimer come 
into the garden; and there walked he with divers other 
doctors and chaplains of my lord of Canterbury. And 
very merry I saw him ; for he laughed, and took one or 
twain about the neck so handsomely that if they had been 
women, I would have weened he had been waxen wanton.’ 

Sir Thomas loved a joke, and was a lively correspondent, 
and we may therefore fairly make some deduction from 
this playfully exaggerated picture of exuberant gaiety ; 
but the glimpse thus preserved in his pages accords with 
all that we know of Latimer’s warm and affectionate 
nature ; and the legislation of that spring, and the general 
prospects of religion, in England, might well cheer the 
spirits of one who had long laboured in danger and dark- 
ness. It was but two years since all was hostile, and he 
had meditated flight from a country where neither his 
life nor his liberty seemed secure ; now, in a wonderful 
manner, beyond all his hopes, that gigantic power which 
had overshadowed England was overthrown, and a bright 
day of freedom and truth and light seemed to have dawned : 
and therefore, Latimer, well-nigh exhausted by controversy 
and despair, might be excused if his joy in its happy 
exuberance spurned all conventional restraints. 

* Sir Thomas More’s Works. London, 1557, p. 1429. One can 
understand Sir Thomas More’s exaggerated satire: but what shall 
we say of Sir Henry Ellis’s remark, that this ‘is a picture of the 


ordinary extravagance of Latimer’s manner’? (Letters, third series, 
vol, ili, p. 202. ] ; 


oe a a ee 


Latimer and the West 1gI 


Soon after the incident in the gardens of Lambeth 
Palace, Latimer returned, buoyant with good news, to 
his country cure; where his parishioners must have 
already begun to suspect that he was not likely long to 
remain a mere country-parson. Cranmer, indeed, had 
invested him with a species of delegated episcopal 
authority. He had not only granted Latimer afresh his 
licence for preaching everywhere within his province, but 
he had committed to him the charge of administering the 
injunctions to all those preachers who were to be licensed, 
with the caution that he should be ‘ right circumspect that 
the injunctions be well observed,’ or else that he should 
return to the Archbishop the licences of those of whose 
conduct he had any doubt.t Practically, therefore, Latimer 
Was entrusted with the care of supplying spiritual teachers 
for the West of England: it was at ‘his request and 
instance,’ that licences to preach were granted by Cranmer ; 
and in the peculiar circumstances of the great Western 
counties, he was almost invested with the power of a 
bishop. 

The two great Western dioceses of Worcester and 
Salisbury were then in a very anomalous position. They 
had been declared vacant by Parliament this very year of 
1534.2 The Bishops, Campeggio and Ghinucci, were both 
Italians ; they resided at Rome; one of them had never 
been in England at all; the other, Campeggio, had cer- 
tainly never been in his diocese ; neither of them had ever 
performed any episcopal functions beyond receiving the 
enormous revenues of their sees. Their absence, as Par- 
liament regretted, was ‘to the manifest injury of hospi- 
tality, Divine service, teaching, preaching, and example of 
good living’ ; nor was it an insignificant provocation, that 
at least three thousand pounds were annually conveyed 
out of England as the net proceeds of their dioceses, to 


* Cranmer’s Letters, No. 127. 
* Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII, cap, 27. 


192 Latimer at West Kington 4 


be spent in luxury at Rome. On these grounds Parliament 


had deprived them of their bishoprics, allowing them, — 


however, four months of grace, within which they might 
return, and retain their dioceses, upon taking the oaths to 
obey the laws of the land. 

At the period, therefore, of which we are now speaking 
—the summer of 1534—there was actually no bishop in 
the see of Worcester. And no diocese more urgently 
required the watchful care of a zealous bishop: it was the” 
most neglected see in England. For forty years it had 
been governed by a succession of Italian prelates, not one 


of whom had ever resided in his bishopric. For many — 


years, Wolsey, also non-resident, had nominally admin- 
istered its affairs ; and since his death, it had been presided 
over by Thomas Parker,: the Chancellor of the diocese, 
the same furious bigot whom we have already seen ex- 
huming and burning the body of William Tracy. Every- 
thing, therefore, was in that state of total disorganisation 
which might be expected in a large and populous see, 
which for half a century had not known the active super- 
intendence of a resident prelate. Probably the diocese 
had been already designed for Latimer, as soon as the 
necessary arrangements could be completed for removing 
Ghinucci ; and his occupation this summer formed an 
admirable introduction to the future labours of his epis- 
copate, by bringing him into contact with many of the 
clergy over whom he was subsequently to preside. 
While Englaiid was thus in every pulpit proclaiming 
that the Papal supremacy was at an end, and arming 


herself against any attempt from within or without to — 


bring her again under the yoke, the unhappy Pope, whose 


vacillation had excited all this fierce strife, passed away. — 


And pious watchers of events, who believed that all 

occurrences were governed not by chance, but by the will 

of God, recognised the Divine wisdom and goodness in 
* Parker was Chancellor in Wolsey’s life from 1522 to 1535. 


| 


{ 


The Act of Supremacy 193 


the period of the Pope’s death. Had Clement died two 
years sooner, before Henry and the Parliament had 
irrevocably committed themselves to their new course, 
the whole history of England might have assumed a 
different complexion. A new pontiff might have granted 
the King’s suit ; Henry would have remained the anointed 
‘Defender of the Faith,’ the elect champion of orthodoxy ; 
and his strong hand might have crushed the English + 
Reformation in the bud. Even after all the legislation of 
the last two sessions, Henry was still willing to listen to 
overtures of reconciliation with Rome. It was no easy 
matter to eradicate from his mind the beliefs and habits 
of his whole past life. There was an able Popish party 
still in the country, powerful among the bishops, the 
nobles, and the Northern counties ; and though the supe- 
rior ability and determination of Cromwell for a time kept 
Henry steady in that policy which he had begun, yet 
Gardiner and Norfolk were sleepless enemies, ever on the 
alert to avail themselves of any false step on the part of 
the great statesman. It was an inestimable advantage, 
therefore, to the cause of the Reformation, that Clement 
survived until some decisive steps had been taken, which 
did not admit of recall. 

Parliament reassembled in November, an unusual pro- 
ceeding in those times, betokening the gravity of the crisis 
through which the nation was passing. Their legislation 
was conceived in the same spirit that had animated 
previous sessions. Their first act (26 Henry VIII. cap. 1), 
the famous Aci of Supremacy, once again formally declared, 
with admirable precision and brevity, what “had been 
formerly admitted, that the King was ‘the only supreme 
head in earth of the Church of England, and that he had 
full power and authority to visit, redress, reform, order, 
correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, 
abuses, contempts, and enormities, which, by any manner 
of spiritual authority or jurisdiction, ought, or may law- 

13 


194 Latimer at West Kington 


fully, be reformed, repressed, ordered, or amended.’ To 
deprive the King of any of his dignity, or titles of his — 
royal estate, or to call him heretic, schismatic, or infidel, — 
was to be reckoned high treason (26 Henry VIII. cap. 13). 4 
All persons were required to take the oath to the Act of 
Succession, and More and Fisher, who had refused to 
swear to it without qualifications, were attainted of treason; a” 
the former being, in addition, charged with sundry acts on 
ingratitude to Henry, which aggravated his offence (26 ~ 
Henry VIII. 22, 23). And to demonstrate that the Royal © 
Supremacy over the Church was no mere legal figment, 
Commissioners were appointed to visit and inquire into’ 
the value and condition of every benefice in England (26 
Henry VIII. cap. 3). 
At the close of the year, on the earnest solicitation of — 
Convocation, Henry issued another prohibition of sus- 
pected books. In the main this was a reactionary docu- — 
ment, a feeble attempt on the part of the clergy to clog — 
the wheels of Parliamentary legislation, although it con- 
tains several concessions to the spirit of the times, due — 
probably to the influence of Cranmer. It prohibited all — 
‘books of Divine Scripture in the English tongue, with — 
any annotations in the margins, or any prologue, or addi- — 
tions in the kalendar or table, except such annotations be ~ 
first viewed, examined, and allowed by the King’s high- — 
ness, but only the plain sentence and text.’ It condemned — 
‘the setting forth of lewd opinions on the most blessed — 
sacrament of the altar’ ; it enjoined the ‘ observance of all ~ 
ceremonies not abolished, as processions, creeping to the 
cross on Good Friday, etc., and it summarily prohibited 
the marriage of priests.’ The great object of Convocation 
in this prohibition seems to-have been to condemn once — 
more the translation of Tindale. That distinguished 
Reformer, almost sublime in the inflexible earnestness — 
with which, in poverty and exile, he devoted himself to — 
* Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 776. ; 


Martyrdom of Tindale 195 


the one great purpose of his life, the glorious determination 


to bring the English Scriptures within the reach of the 


poorest of his countrymen, had just finished his career of 
active labour. Pursued with relentless diligence, he had 
recently been betrayed at Antwerp, and was languishing 
in prison. A few months later he perished in the flames 
at Vilvorde, without even setting foot again in that 
ungrateful country for which he had so_unceasingly 
laboured; a country which has never yet fairly recog- 
nised the immense debt of gratitude it owes to that simple- | 
minded and undaunted Reformer, to whom England owes 
her greatest treasure—the noble English Bible. 

In 1535 neither Parliament nor Convocation assembled. 
It was a year of stern action; too busy for debating and 
parliamentary eloquence. All over England the old eccle- 
siastical power and pretension was engaged in deadly duel 
with the new Royal authority. Henry was not the man 
to sleep over his new-established prerogative, especially 
when any symptoms of irresolution might have cost him 
so dear. He had taken his stand, and had marked out 
the path in which his subjects were to tread, and no 
deviation was to be allowed, either to the right hand or to 
the left. No man, at the peril of his life, might remain 


_ neutral in this fierce struggle ; all must choose their side, 


and woe to him whose conscience would not allow him 
to go so far as the King had done, or compelled him to 
go farther. To deny the Royal Supremacy in. ecclesi- 
astical matters, or to decline the Oath of Succession, with 
its oblique censure of the Pope, was high treason, for 


which a man might be hanged and quartered. To deny 


the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament, or to 
call in question the traditional teaching of the Church on 
the most mysterious subjects, was heresy, for which a man 
might die at the stake. It was truly a time of peril, 


especially dangerous to the more thorough-going adhe- 
rents of either side. Men of moderate opinions might 


196 Latimer at West Kington . 


escape, but the conscientious defenders of the Papal 
claims, and the bold advocates of a complete reformation 
in doctrine and ritual, were almost certain to suffer from 
the dangers that threatened on either hand. 

The contest was not conducted without bloodshed ; 
both parties furnished their martyrs to Henry’s rigorous 
impartiality, and on both sides men met their death with a — 
courage that did them honour. On May 4, 1535, five 
ecclesiastics were executed for treason. On the 25th of 
the same month, fourteen Dutch Anabaptists were burned ~ 
in Smithfield for heresy. On June 19, three monks of the — 
Charter House were hanged as traitors; and, to strike — 
terror into the rest of the clergy, they were executed in 
their priestly vestments. 

Two more notable victims followed, whose death re- 
sounded all over Europe. Fisher, whose great learning 
and high character made him for years the leader of that 
ecclesiastical party in England which favoured the Pope’s 
pretensions, had been imprisoned for some time for his 
share in the imposture of the Nun of Kent, and had been © 
deprived of his bishopric. He was now arraigned on the — 
charge of ‘falsely. and maliciously maintaining that the 4 
King, our sovereign lord, is not supreme head in earth of © 
the Church of England’ ;* an offence which, by the late 
Acts of Parliament, amounted to high treason; and he 
was condemned and beheaded on June 22. He died — 
calmly and bravely. His head, for which the Pope had — 
indiscreetly sent a cardinal’s hat, was in barbarous mockery 
exhibited on London Bridge. 

A fortnight after, Sir Thomas More followed him to the — 
block—condemned and executed for the same offence. — 
It is unnecessary to repeat the familiar narrative of his — 
execution, or to write the panegyric of the great philo- — 


* The questions administered to Fisher and More in the Tower, with 
their answers, are preserved, ina very dilapidated condition, in the — 
Chapter House Papers, A. 1. 13. ng 


Execution of Fisher and More 197 


sophic Chancellor, who died so strangely, with a jest upon 
his lips. He was recognised as the greatest representative 
of English wit and learning; a ‘man of incomparable 
genius,’ as Erasmus styles him; and the many admirable 
features in his character, his simplicity, his urbanity, his 
integrity, the fascinating grace of his domestic life, have 
won for him the universal esteem of all men of letters. 
His praises may be read in every history of England ; but 
in this biography of Latimer it must not be omitted that 
Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor of England, and guar- 
dian of her laws, sanctioned the imprisonment, torture, 


and death of English subjects contrary to the law ; that 


having in his youth advocated toleration and charity with 
all the charms of his eloquence, he, in his riper years, 
defiled his pen with feeble and intolerant abuse of a man | 
at least as honest and noble as himself—William Tindale ; 
that he consigned Bilney to the flames with a heartless 
joke, and listened to slanders upon his reputation after his 
death, on the doubtful evidence of a peculating priest ; 
that having maintained in his Utopia that no man ought to 
be punished for his religious belief, he caused it to be 
inscribed on his tombstone that he was ‘furibus et homi- 
cidis, hereticisque molestus.’ * 

In putting to death Fisher and More, Henry gave indu- 
bitable evidence of his fixed determination to spare no one 
who opposed his policy. It was a challenge to his oppo- 
nents ; and the Pope lost no time in replying to the open 


* It is well known that in the epitaph composed by himself, and 
engraven on the tombstone in the old parish church of Chelsea, the 
word hereticisque does not occur, but a blank space is left between 
homicidis and molestus. The word, however, stood in the copy of the 
epitaph transmitted by More to Erasmus ; and Sir Thomas even boasts 
of it in one of his letters: ‘Quod in Epitaphio profiteor ha@reticis me 
fuisse molestum, hoc ambitiose feci: nam omnino sic illud hominum 
genus odi ut illis ni resipiscant tam invisus esse velim quam cui 
maxime. Letter to Erasmus: Erasmus’ Letters B.27: Letter 10. In 
the edition of Sir Thomas More’s Works, London, 1557, black letter, 
there is on page 1419 a copy of the inscription, and the word heretic- 
isque occurs in it, 


198 Latimer at West Kington — ’ 
a 
defiance of this rebellious son of the Church. On August — 
30th he fulminated a bull against Henry, depriving him of 
his dominions, absolving his subjects from their allegiance — 
placing the kingdom under an interdict, and urging all — 
orthodox sovereigns to unite in a crusade against him. 
The supremacy was no verbal distinction, but a real power — 
worth the struggling for; and if the Pope was unwilling — 
to relinquish what had long belonged to the Papal see, 
Henry was on his part equally resolved not to abandon — 
what seemed to him the brightest jewel of his crown. 
He knew well from what quarter in England resistance — 
might be expected—from the army of regular clergy, — 
quartered like Papal garrisons in the numerous monastic — 
establishments that existed in every county. Already — 
they had rendered themselves conspicuous for the uncom- 
promising boldness with which they opposed his divorce, — 
and his marriage with Anne; and it was quite certain 
that all their influence would be exerted to maintain the 
Papal supremacy, and to thwart the recent legislation of 
Parliament. ‘With this difficulty also Henry was prepared — 
to cope ; he had been armed with plenary authority to — 
visit all religious houses, and to correct and reform them — 
as he saw necessary ; and this power, as we shall presently 
see, enabled him to impose a most effectual check on the — 
insubordinate tendencies of the religious orders. 

Of Latimer’s occupation since last we saw him in 
London in Lambeth Garden, nothing certain is known. 
The responsible charge committed to him by Cranmer . 
would sufficiently employ his energies, and would keep — 
him on the alert. As he was now free to preach in any — 
part of the South of England, and as preachers who could ~ : 
be trusted to proclaim the ‘true, mere, and sincere Word ] 
of God,’ and to denounce ‘the proud pomp and presump- — 
tion of ihe Bishop of Rome,’ were by no means abundant, 
it is probable that Latimer may have spent much of his © 
time in officiating in various places adjacent to his little 


a 
o 


A Confessor’s Criticisms 199 


country parish. It is also likely that he spent some part 
of the spring of 1535 in London; for Latimer’s eloquence 
rendered him a great power in England, and in the face 
of the determined opposition which the recent Acts of 
Parliament were likely to excite, it was no small gain to 
Cromwell to secure the advocacy of one whose words 
produced so profound a sensation among the people. 
The following notice of Latimer seems to belong most 
appropriately to the present year :-— 

‘I heard a sermon yesterday of Master Latimer,’ so 
runs the confession of John Stanton, ‘saying that no man 
of himself hath authority to forgive sins ; and that the 
Pope hath no more authority than another Bishop.’ 
‘ Latimer,’ the father confessor replied to the penitent, ‘is 
a false knave, a heretic. Marry, this I heard Latimer 

_ say, that if a man come to confession, and be not sorry for 
' his sins, the priest hath no power to forgive him. I say 
_ the Pope’s pardon is as good as ever it was, and he is the 

head of the universal Church, and so will I take him. 
Here in England the King and his Parliament hath put 
him out ; but be of good comfort, and steadfast in your 
faith : this thing will not last long, I warrant you.’ * 

Such was the teaching of many a confessional, foment- 
ing a spirit of disobedience and rebellion, living in hope 
of a speedy deliverance from the yoke of Henry and the 
Parliament. 

There is no doubt that Latimer spent part of the 
summer of 1535 in London, in consultation with Cranmer 
and Cromwell on the situation of affairs in the Church 
and State. Cranmer, who almost alone of the dignified 
clergy was in favour of the Reformation, was anxious that 
Latimer should be promoted to one of the vacant 
bishoprics, that he might have at least one friend on the 
bench whose energy would be honestly devoted to the 
great cause that he had at heart. And Cromwell, without 

t Froude’s History of England, vol. ii. 


200 Latimer at West Kington 


friends or counsellors in the midst of all his power, was 
equally anxious to avail himself of Latimer’s shrewd and 
honest advice. To this friendship of Cromwell we are 
indebted for a considerable amount of correspondence, 
extending over the whole of Latimer’s episcopate, and of 
great value as illustrating his labours during that important 
period of his life. The first of these letters belongs 
clearly to the summer of 1535, and was apparently written 
in London :— 


‘To the right honourable Master Secretary to the King’s Grace: 

‘Right honourable Sir, Salutem in Christo Fesu. And 
as to the thing that I moved unto your mastership* at my 
departure yesterday, this bearer is the gentleman of whom 
I told you of, ready to all things that you shall require of 
him, and only for lack of calling on hitherto slow ; as he 
himself can tell you. And perchance he can tell you of 
more as far behind hand as he, if commissioners were 
always as mindful to further the King’s business as they 
be to advance their own profits about their tenants, etc. 
But I ween if you might make progress throughout 
England, you should find how “acts declareth hearts.” 
But you can use all things to the best, according to your 
approved wisdom. And meseemeth it were not amiss that 
gentlemen of lands and arms should so swear to the 
King’s issue, that their oaths and also names be registered, 
etc. ; for so you should know surely who were sworn and 
who not. I pray you be good master to this gentleman 
my prisoner’ [parishioner ?], ‘and pardon me of this my 
foolish scribbling. ‘Yours, to his little power, 

‘H. Latimer. 


‘It may chance that I shall send you more to the same 
purpose. God preserve you in long life to God’s pleasure.” 

* Cromwell was then Master of the Rolls. 

2 From the State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, C.3.21. The 


volume contains thirty-five letters from Latimer, arranged without 
much regard to chronological order. These have all been printed in 


Latimer and the See of Worcester 201 


The oath here referred to is the Oath of the Succession, 
appointed by Parliament in the close of 1534 to be 
administered to all English subjects ; and it is plain from 
the terms of the letter that Latimer had been consulted by 
Cromwell on this leading political measure of the day. 

Latimer’s chief business in London at this period, 
however, was, undoubtedly, in connection with his pro- 
posed elevation to the vacant see of Worcester. Cranmer 
and Cromwell, we know, would warmly support his 
appointment ; Henry had oftener than once expressed his 
approbation of Latimer ; and he was an especial favourite 
with Anne Boleyn, who still remained supreme in the 
King’s affections.t The circumstances of the times, more- 
over, and the gravity of the situation, required that 
preachers of ability should be promoted to the responsible 
position of bishops, men who would exercise all their 
influence in advancing the policy of the King and his 
great minister. Latimer and Shaxton, therefore, who had 
been for several years conspicuous for their zeal in 
defending Henry’s cause, were destined for the vacant 
sees of Worcester and Salisbury : and it was in connection 
with this business, a complicated and tedious one from 
various causes, that Latimer was detained in London till 
the commencement of November. 

If Latimer was ambitious, he had at last, in his fiftieth 
year, achieved a brilliant triumph ; if he was desirous of 
a position where full scope would be given for the 
exercise of those abilities of which he was conscious, he 
had at length succeeded in reaching it; if he pined after 
ease and comfort and honour after the fierce turmoil and 
Dr. Corrie’s edition of Latimer’s Remains, in general with wonderful 
accuracy, considering the extreme difficulty of deciphering the 
wretched writing. Few other of Latimer’s letters have been pre- 
served ; most of them, in all probability, having been burnt as utterly 
beyond the reach of human ingenuity to decipher. 

t There does not appear, however, to be any certain evidence that he 


was, as is usually stated, Anne’s chaplain: William Latimer was one 
of her chaplains (Rymer, vol. xiv.) ; hence perhaps the confusion. 


202 Latimer at West Kington 


danger of his past life, surely he must have been sagacious 


enough to perceive that his new dignity was more likely — 


to bring a vast accession to his load of cares than to 
minister to any love of rest. 

It does not appear that he at any time solicited the high 
office to which he was now advanced; indeed, even his 
enemies have seldom charged him with the infirmity of 
ambition. It would be with a weighty sense of responsi- 
bility that he would undertake the solemn duties of his 
new rank ; and yet, in the heart of one who had so long 
contended in a seemingly hopeless battle against over- 
whelming odds, there must have risen up emotions of 
gratitude and hope, as he now prepared to continue the 
combat on more advantageous terms, and with brightening 
prospects of success. 


oe 


CHAPTER V 


LATIMER’S EPISCOPATE 


(1535 TO 1539) 


ATIMER enjoyed his new dignity barely four years ; 
but these were among the most momentous years 
in the history of the English Church and nation. During 
his brief episcopate occurred the trial and execution of 
Anne Boleyn, the suppression of the monasteries, the 
authorised circulation of the Scriptures in English, the 
issue of the First Articles of the Reformed Church of 
England, the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Romish reaction, 
and the enactment of the ‘ Bloody Statutes.’ In most of 
these transactions, Latimer was deeply interested; in 
many of them he had an important share: and when to 
these public cares were added the daily administration of 
a large, populous, and long-neglected diocese, the arduous 
task of providing for the spiritual instruction of his charge 
when qualified instructors were very few, and the perilous 
duty of guiding his clergy aright in times of unusual 
difficulty and danger, it will be understood that these few 
years of his episcopate were among the busiest and most 
harassing of his life. 
Of the daily round of his episcopal cares we have only 
a few records remaining: the anxieties of a reforming 
bishop, in a Popish diocese, while the country was passing 


through the crisis of a Reformation and the throes of 
203 


204 Latimer’s Episcopate 


elie > 


civil war, must be left to the reader’s imagination, — 


materially assisted, however, by Latimer’s frequent letters 
to Cromwell. No one who has carefully marked Latimer’s 
previous career can doubt that he would conduct himself 
like a ‘ diligent and vigilant pastor, instructing his diocese 
with wholesome doctrine, and example of perfect con- 
versation duly agreeing to the same,’ exhibiting such 
‘study, readiness, and continual carefulness in teaching, 
preaching, exhorting, visiting, correcting and reforming, 
either as his ability could serve, or else the time would 
bear.’ The times, indeed, were dangerous, and required 
wary walking; and Latimer’s zeal for reformation was 
grievously impeded, not only by the ignorance and 


superstition of the people, but by the reluctance of the ~ 


King to permit any wide departure from the doctrine and 
ritual to which he was so firmly attached. But the nature 
of the cares and opposition by which he was ‘tossed and 
turmoiled,’ and finally driven from his see, will appear 
more clearly as we proceed. 

The diocese of Worcester was much more extensive in 
Latimer’s time than at present. It included not only the 
present diocese, but also what is now the united diocese 
of Gloucester and Bristol; so that it was of sufficient 
dimensions to give full occupation to the time and energy 
of the most active prelate. Its revenues were princely, 
ample enough to satisfy any vulgar ambition that merely 
longed for money. After all deductions were made, 
Latimer had a net income of upwards of £1,000 a year,? 
equivalent to at least £15,000 of our money. Various 
manors in the county of Worcester belonged to the 
Bishop ; he had a convenient London residence ;3 and 
he possessed in addition the stately castle of Hartlebury, 


1 Foxe, vol. vii. p. 461. 

2 The exact sum, according to Tanner, was £1,049 17s. 3d. 

3 Stroud Place, levelled to make room for Somerset’s Palace. See 
Dugdale’s Monasticon. 


= ee ee 


sr 7 


4 
Latimer’s Election 205 


which, for upwards of nine centuries, had been the palace 
of the Bishops of Worcester. 

Latimer’s election was conducted in exact conformity 
with the method prescribed by Parliament after the 
abolishing of the Papal Supremacy ; and as several fierce 
though minute controversies have been waged in connec- 
tion with this subject, it may not be amiss to notice in 
detail the whole process. Immediately on a see being 
declared vacant, a writ was issued to seize the temporalities 
into the King’s hand: a congé délire was then granted, 
and the person nominated therein was in due course 
elected to the bishopric, and his election was certified to 
the King. A commission under the Great Seal was next 
addressed to the Archbishop to examine the election, and, 
if it were rightly made, to confirm it, and to consecrate 
the new Bishop. A certificate of the consecration was 
then forwarded to the King; the new Bishop took the 
Oath of Allegiance; and finally a writ was issued from 
the Exchequer to restore the temporalities.* 

That this course was followed with due regularity in 
Latimer’s case, is apparent from the following ‘ Deed for 
restoring the temporalities of the see of Worcester :—? 


‘Rex Esczetori suo in comitatu Wigorniz salutem : 


‘Cum reverendissimus in Christo pater Thomas, Cantua- 
rensis Archiepiscopus, totius Angliz Primas et Metro- 
politanus, vacante nuper episcopatu Wygorniensi, per 
deprivationem Jeronimi de Ghinuccis ultimi episcopi 
ibidem, Prior Ecclesiz Cathedralis Wygorniensis, et 
ejusdem loci commonachi sive conventus, dilectum et 
fidelem capellanum nostrum Magistrum Hugonem Latymer 
sacre Theologiz professorem, in eorum episcopum 
elegerint et nominaverint, cui quidem electioni et personze 
sic electz regium nostrum assensum adhibuimnus et 


* See the whole more minutely explained in Archbishop Bramhall’s 
Works, vol. iii. 2 Rymer, Federa, vol. xiv. p. 553- 


206 Latimer’s Episcopate % 


favorem, confirmaverit, ac ipsum Hugonem Latymer 


episcopum Wygorniensem consecraverit, ipsumque episco- 
palibus insignibus investiverit, sicuti per literas patentes 
ipsius reverendissimi in Christo patris nobis inde directas 
constat, Nos, confirmationem et consecrationem illas 
acceptantes, fidelitatem ipsius electi et confirmati nobis 
pro temporalibus episcopatus przedicti debitam cepimus, 
et temporalia przedicti prout moris est restituimus eidem : 
et ideo tibi preecipimus quod eidem electo temporalia 
przedicta sine dilatione liberes: 

‘Teste aSBE apud Westmonasterium, quarto die Octobris. 
Anno 1535.’ 

In English, somewhat as follows :— 


‘The King to his Escheator, in the county of Worcester, 


greeting : 

‘ Whereas the most reverend father in Christ, Thomas, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and 
Metropolitan (the see of Worcester being lately vacant by 
the deprivation of Jerome de Ghinucci the last Bishop, 
and the Prior? and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of 
Worcester having elected and nominated for their Bishop 
our trusty and well-beloved chaplain Hugh Latimer, 
Doctor of Divinity, to which election, and person thus 
elected, we have given our royal assent and favour), has 
confirmed and consecrated Hugh Latimer Bishop of 
Worcester, and invested him with the episcopal insignia’ 
[ring, pastoral staff, etc.], ‘as appears from letters patent 
of the most reverend father in Christ addressed to us on this 
matter, We, accepting this confirmation and consecration, 


have received the oath of the Bishop-elect due to us for 


the temporalities of the said bishopric, and restore to him 
the temporalities as is usual; and therefore we order 
thee to deliver the temporalities to the said Bishop-elect 
without delay. 

‘Given by the King at Westminster, October 4, 1535.’ 


* There was as yet no Dean at Worcester. 


His Consecration 207 


This authentic document, preserved in the public records 
of the country, ought long ago to have settled several 
controversies which are still occasionally agitated. It 
places beyond dispute, for example, the fact that Latimer 
received the degree of Doctor of Divinity ; although, as had 
been already mentioned, there is no record in Cambridge 
of his thus graduating, and at his last examination at Oxford 
‘the carpet or cloth which lay upon the table whereat 
Master Ridley stood, was removed, because (as men re- 
ported) Master Latimer had never the degree of a Doctor, 
as Master Ridley had.’? It is the merest pedantry to callin 
question a fact, which rests on a record as authoritative 
as Magna Charta, merely because it happens to be omitted 
from University Registers, which are known to be defective. 

The ‘Deed’ likewise places Latimer’s consecration 
beyond doubt, for, curiously enough, no other record of 
his consecration is known to exist, and those critics who 
delight to detect any flaw in the conduct or policy of 
the Reformers, have consequently maintained that Latimer 
never was consecrated at all. The consecration ought 
to have been regularly entered in Cranmer’s Register ; 
this Register is, however, kept with such extreme careless- 
ness, that no argument can be founded upon its numerous 
omissions.2_ The mandate for restoring the temporalities is, 
of course, incontestable evidence of his consecration, as 
good as if it had been entered in all the episcopal registers 
of England ; and as similar mandates were signed on the 
same day for restoring the temporalities of Hereford to 
Fox, and of Rochester to Hilsey, the presumption arises 
that all three were consecrated at the same time and 
place. Fox and Hilsey were consecrated at Winchester on 
September 26, 1535: and it may be accepted as certain 
that Latimer was consecrated along withthem.3 To show 


* Foxe, vol. vii. p. 540. 2 Preface to Bramhall’s Works, vol. iii. 

3 Such is the conclusion of Professor Stubbs in his Resistrum Sacrum 
An, area, Pp. 77 : and every scholar will at once receive his decision 
as final, 


~ 


208 Latimer’s Episcopate % 


how little can be founded upon the omissions in Cranmer’s 
Register, it may be noted that not one of the three conse- 
crations is inserted, although it happens that in the cases 
of Fox and Hilsey, the fact has been regularly chronicled 
in the Registers of their respective dioceses. 

The matter is not one of any momentous consequences, 
still it is a satisfaction to know that the technical charges 


alleged against the Reformers of irregularity in matters of © 


ecclesiastical detail, are as groundless as the graver accu- 
sations sometimes advanced against their characters. It 
need scarcely be added that Latimer was consecrated 
according to the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, no 
reform having yet been introduced into the ordinal of the 
Church of England, beyond the omission from it of the old 
oath of allegiance to the Pope, which had been abolished 
by Parliament. 

We have, however, been somewhat anticipating the 
order of events. The royal writ for the election of a new 
Bishop of Worcester in the room of Ghinucci was probably 
issued some time early in August. There was as yet no 
Dean and Chapter of Worcester, and William Moore, the 
Prior of the Cathedral Church, presided at the election. 
No delay would occur at this part of the proceedings ; 


and on August 20, Latimer was installed by the Prior as 


Bishop. The next step, the confirmation of the election, 
could not proceed without a Royal Commission, and 
Henry was absent from London. A fortnight passed ; 
Latimer was anxious to begin his episcopal labours ; but 
the royal authority was still wanting. Naturally, in his 
difficulty, Latimer had recourse to the King’s Vicar- 
General in ecclesiastical affairs, and on September 4, he 
wrote as follows to Cromwell :— 


‘ HONOURABLE SiR,—Sis salvus in Christo, and do certify 
your mastership how we’ [Cranmer and I] ‘succeed in 


t State Paper Office, Chapter House Papers, C. 3. 20, p. 476. 


oe 


. 
| 
i 
: 
| 


; 
; 


Confirmation Lacking 209 


our matters. We have been here’ [in London] ‘now all 
this fortnight in vain, obtaining as yet neither confirma- 
tion’ [of the election], ‘nor yet of temporalities restitution. 
For lack of the royal assent with your signification, my 
lord of Canterbury cannot proceed ; and we hear nothing 
of it, neither of Master Gostwyck’ [Royal Commissioner 
for valuing all benefices], ‘nor otherwhere. For expedi- 
tion of these things it had been better for us to have given 
attendance of your mastership still in the court’ [Henry 
was then at Thornbury]: ‘and so we would have been 
glad to have done, if it had been seen to your mastership 
so to have appointed us. I did speak this day with Mr. 
Polstead’ [another Royal Commissioner], ‘which hath no 
further instructions from your mastership yet, as he saith, 
but to receive our sureties for the first-fruits: and he is 
uncertain as yet what they shall be. And as touching my 
part in that behalf, I trust your mastership hath not 
forgotten my last suit, for the which I was minded to 
have gone to the King’s grace myself; but the Queen’s 
grace’ [Anne Boleyn], ‘calling to remembrance at what 
end my lord of Salisbury’ [Shaxton, new Bishop of that 
see] ‘was at, said I should not need to move the King, but 
that it should be enough to inform your mastership thereof. 
It shall be your mastership’s pleasure whether I shall tarry 
your return hither, or whether this bearer shall tarry your 
leisure to bring further instruction from you. Thus I am 
bold to interrupt you, and yet not without great lothness, 
forasmuch as I consider your hourly business in matters 
of more weightiness than this. God preserve you long in 
health to God’s pleasure, which is my daily prayer. My 
brother of Rochester’ [Hilsey, former antagonist at 
Bristol, now Bishop-elect of Rochester], ‘commendeth 
him most heartily unto you. 
‘ Yours, ‘ H. LATIMER, elect.’ 


This letter had the desired effect. Within a short time 
14 


the necessary royal sanction was given to the election: — 
Latimer was consecrated by Cranmer, at Winchester; © 
took the Oath of Allegiance in accordance with the recent 
Act of Parliament, and on October 4, as we have seen, — 
Henry signed the writ for the restoration of the tempo- 
ralities of the see. 

Latimer was now all anxiety to repair to his diocese, — 
and commence his episcopal labours ; but there were still — 
impediments in the way. His health was precarious ; he 
was encumbered with invitations to preach ; and there — 
was important business to be transacted with Cromwell — 
and Cranmer ere he could leave London. About the — 
middle of October, therefore, he again writes to Cromwell.* 


210 Latimer’s Episcopate 


‘ HONOURABLE Si1R,—Salutem in Salutis omnium Authore. 
I was in a near disposition to an axess? yesterday, which — 
letted me to come to your mastership for the draft you wot | 
of. And now this day my lord of Westminster ’ [Benson, | 
last abbot and first dean of Westminster] ‘hath put untoy 
me to preach there with him, else he should be like to be 
disappointed. If you would of your goodness send it to — 
me by this bearer, I would apply my little wit to the 
imitation of the same. And I will write and certify my 
lord of Canterbury according to your advertisement in all 
haste. 

Oeil [2535 |. ‘Yours, Hug. WYGORN.’ 


The letter here referred to as written by Latimer to 
Cranmer has not been preserved ; but a passage in one of 
Cranmer’s letters to Cromwell explains satisfactorily the — 
nature of the draft alluded to. Writing on November 2, 


State Paper Office, ubi supra, p. 479. 1 

2 For axess, Dr. Corrie, in his edition of Latimer’s Remains, has — 
printed conjecturally illness. The writing is, to be sure, execrable: 
but the original seems certainly to resemble awies, or axess. The 
accesse is an old English term for the aguc, used not ’ unfrequently by | 
Chaucer ; there can be little doubt, therefore, that this should be 
accepted as the true reading of the passage. 


| 
| 
| 


—-— OF 


Latimer Leaves for Worcester 211 


Cranmer says, ‘The Bishop of Worcester lately wrote 
unto me in your name, that I looked upon the King’s 
business through my fingers, doing nothing in that matter 
wherefore we were sent for unto Winchester; and I 
marvel not that you do so think, which knoweth not what 
I have done’ ;* and then he explains that he had already 
carefully drawn up articles upon the Pope’s authority to 
furnish materials for preachers ill acquainted with the 
subject. The draft, therefore, was some similar code of 
instructions for the use of the clergy, which Cromwell had 
been compiling ; and we know that it was for the purpose 
of consulting on the best methods of teaching the people 
why the Papal Supremacy had been abolished, that Henry 
had summoned his Bishops to meet him at Winchester. 
Once more Latimer writes to Cromwell on the same 
subject, as he is just on the eve of departing for his 
diocese. 


‘HONOURABLE S1rR,—Salutem. And I pray you forgive 
me for that I have not, according to my duty, delivered 
unto you this draft before this time; I have been so 
distract in preparing homewards, etc. : God preserve you 
long to His pleasure in health and well-doing. 

‘Yours, to his little power, H. Wycorn. 


* Postrid : Sanctiss: Sutorum?’ (day after St. Crispin’s 
Oct 26). ‘If your mastership have the old seal of my 
office, I would recompense you according to the weight,’ 2 


By the beginning of November we may suppose 
Latimer had completed his preparations, and had left 
London for his diocese. Of his proceedings for the next 
three months till his return to London when Parliament 
-* Cranmer’s Letters, No. 160. 

2 State Paper Office, ubi supra, p. 477. The arms of the see of 
Worcester, engraven on the se: 1, were ‘argent, ten torteauxes, four, 
three, two, one, gules’: these 1ed drops signifying the eucharist 
according to heralds. 


212 Latimer’s Episcopate 


reassembled, we have no detailed account ; but it may be 
taken for granted that he was entirely absorbed in the end- 
less duties of his see, which, after the virtual interregnum 
of half a century, must have been a very Augean stable of 
abuses. It was in the careful discharge of these humble 
duties, of merely local consequence, that Latimer’s useful- 
ness as a Reforming Bishop largely consisted ; and he seems 
to have devoted his whole time and energy to them : but 
history seldom preserves the memory of that common- 
place routine, which is after all the main staple and 
occupation even of the most important life. All Latimer’s 
energy, and skill, and patience would be tasked to the 
uttermost in ruling and reforming a diocese so long 
accustomed to the licence of uncontrolled freedom, 
where the monks and the priests had hitherto reigned 
supreme, and ignorance and superstition had flourished 
for ages. 

In the midst of these tedious and vexatious labours, 
Christmas would come with an agreeable summons to rest 
and relaxation. The reader has not forgotten Latimer’s 
pleasant anticipations of keeping a merry Christmas with 
his parishioners in West Kington, so woefully embittered 
by Stokesley’s vindictive malice : and now that he had no 
enemy to fear, and had ample resources, we may be sure 
that the ancient halls of Hartlebury would echo the 
joyous greetings of a long-disused hospitality. During 
the whole of his brief episcopate, indeed, the proper 
observance of Christmas was always a matter of anxiety to 
Latimer ; and no hospitable old English usage, no kindly 
benevolence to the poor, would be neglected by him: 
Christmas would not be shorn of any of its wonted cheer — 
so long as he presided in Hartlebury. 

It was also customary in those times for the people and — 
the clergy to offer some presents to their Bishop on New 
Year’s-day, in token of their esteem ; and Latimer, in the 
subsequent years of his episcopate, received on these occa- 


i citi tera 


Latimer’s Offering 213 


sions many valuable proofs of the respect of those whom 
he ruled. The Bishops, on their part, were likewise 
expected by the custom of the times to present some 
New Year’s gift to Henry; and their gifts to a sovereign 
who was constantly suffering from impecuniosity, naturally 
consisted of liberal sums of money. The richer Bishops 
offered as much as £750 of our money; and the great 
Abbey of Westminster contributed £900 as their New 
Year’s gift to propitiate Henry’s favour. Latimer’s gift in 
future years was £20, equal to £300 in our day; but on 
this, the first New Year’s-day after his elevation to a 
bishopric, he transmitted to the King, according to Foxe, 
a very singular offering, such as seldom finds its way into 
royal coffers. 

‘There was then,’ says the martyrologist, ‘and remaineth 
still, an ancient custom received from the old Romans, that 
upon New Year’s-day, being the first day of January, every 
bishop with some handsome New Year’s gift should gratify 
the King; and so they did, some with gold, some with 
silver, some with a purse full of money, and some one 
thing, some another. But Master Latimer, being Bishop 
of Worcester then, among the rest, presented a New 
Testament for his New Year’s gift, with a napkin having 
this posy’ [inscription] ‘about it, Fornicatores et adulteros 
judicabit Dominus’ [fornicators and adulterers God will 
judge ].? 

Foxe has not given any authority for this anecdote, 
which, like some more of the good martyrologist’s stories, 
must be set down as unauthenticated gossip. The New 
Year of 1536 was, however, the only occasion during 
Latimer’s episcopate on which he could have brought 
such a charge against Henry; for just at that time the 
King’s neglect of Anne Boleyn and his open preference 
for Jane Seymour had become the topic of general remark 
and speculation at court. And in any case the anecdote 


* See Strype, Eccl. Mem. I. pt. i. p. 211. 2 Foxe, vol. vii. 


214 Latimer’s Episcopate 


may unquestionably be considered a tribute to Latimer’s 
well-known intrepidity, a sort of public recognition that 
he alone possessed the courage, which, if necessary, would 
rebuke the vices of his sovereign as sternly as John the 
Baptist rebuked those of Herod. 

Among the first matters to attract Latimer’s attention in 
his diocese was the position of the Prior of the Abbey of 
Worcester, the same William Moore whom we have just 
seen presiding at Latimer’s election. He was the most 
important personage in the diocese next to the Bishop, 
and could do much to promote or to retard Latimer’s use- 
fulness. Moore seems to have been devoted chiefly to his 
own enjoyment, and not only indifferent to the great 
religious movement of the time, but even careless of the 
interests of the great house over which he presided. Such 
a man was of course only an obstruction in Latimer’s 
way. He had, however, been guilty of some offence 
which exposed him to deprivation, and even to death ; he 
had been suspended from his office, and there was hope, 
therefore, of his place being filled by some one less likely 
to impede Latimer. Henry did not wish to be severe on 
the poor man, and was anxious that Latimer should be 
consulted about restoring him again to his office. As 
soon, therefore, as his Christmas festivities were ended, 
Latimer addressed to Cromwell the following shrewd and 
sensible letter on this somewhat delicate subject :— 

‘ After my right hearty commendations to your master- 
ship. Where’ [whereas] ‘you write unto me that the 
King’s grace, moved with pity, and having also divers 
other considerations stirring to the same, is inclined to 
restore the Prior of Worcester to his room and office 
again ; desiring nevertheless to know my opinion therein 
in writing to you, or ever his Grace do resolve himself 
thoroughly upon the same : in consideration whereof, I do 
you to understand, by this letter written with my own 
hand, that I rejoice not a little to perceive that the King’s 


i 


The Prior of Worcester’s Case 215 


grace is moved of his gracious goodness to have pity of 
that simple man. But there is divers degrees in pity, as I 
think ; for if that great crime’ [probably some denial of 
the Royal Supremacy] ‘ was not alonely detected, but also 
proved against him, as you do say it was, then to pardon 
him of his life is to show a great pity. To add thereunto 
a competent living for himself and one to wait upon him, 
is to show a greater pity.* And so far forth, I wish, and 
have done always, that the King’s highness would extend 
his pity unto him. And verily I marvel greatly if his heart 
be so strong, so flinty, that so great pity and compassion 
as it is cannot reconcile him to the King’s highness suffi- 
ciently. Marry, to burden him with his busy office again, 
and to clog him again with his great cure, namely now, 
he being so debile, so weak, and of so great age as you 
write him to be, whether it be to pity him or to trouble 
him, I cannot say. But for mine opinion in this behalf (to 
say what | think without fiction to my prince), the King’s 
grace had need after such a sort to be pitiful toward one 
man, that his Grace seem not for pitying of one to be 
pitiless toward many : I mean the whole house of’ [and ?] 
‘the country thereabout. For either he is able to discharge 
that great cure, and can serve God and the King sufficiently 
therein, or not: if he be able and can, it were well done 
that the King’s grace would extend his pity thereunto ; if 
not, it were great pity to trouble him, and to charge him 
with that thing now, in his extreme age, which thing (per- 
chance) he was never able to discharge in midst of his 
youth. 

‘But now, what ability is required to discharging of such 
an office, no man can tell better than the King’s grace 


* Moore was pardoned, and was actually allowed two of the manors 
of the priory, with plate, etc. ; his debts were paid, he received a pre- 
sent of 1,000 marks, and had a monk to wait on him and say mass. 
Like other annuitants, the lucky prior long enjoyed his good fortune : 
he lived, indeed, to see Cromwell beheaded, and Latimer burned. See 


Dugdale, vol. i. p. 581. 


216 Latimer’s Episcopate 


himself. Again : what ability this man hath to discharge 
such an office, no man can tell better than my lord of 
Canterbury, or than Mr. Doctor Lee’ [one of Cromwell’s 
visitors], ‘ which both did visit there, and knoweth both 
what he can do, and what the house needeth to be done. 
And I think you yourself is not ignorant therein ; for I 
have heard you speak your mind both of their house, and 
also of him. And this is all that I can say. If I have one 
there to help me, I shall do the more good ; if not I shall 
boggle’ [manage] ‘myself as well as I can. When I 
perceived that there was no hope to speak for this man, I 
named two other to the King, of the which two his Grace 
preferred Coton ;* and I certified you his highness’s plea- 
sure thereof, and the Queen’s grace hath remembered’ 
[reminded] ‘you since. As God and the King will have 
it, so be it, Amen: for if they two be well served, I am 
right well pleased ; and thus I commit you to God’s pre- 
servation. This messenger maketh so great haste, that I 
have leisure to write no better’ [the writing is no worse 
than usual, however]. 
‘Yours to command, HuGH OF WORCESTER. 
‘Sabbato post Epiphaniam proximo’ (January 8, 1536). 


Latimer, one is glad to know, had a prior appointed who 
was well-disposed to assist him in his work of reforming 
and teaching the diocese. Cranmer had already suggested 
two ‘men of eminent learning and good conversation,’ as 
suitable successors of the deprived prior, Henry Holbech, 
of Croyland Abbey, and Richard Gorton, of the Abbey of 
Burton-on-Trent. Henry selected Holbech, who was pro- 
bably the unnamed candidate referred to in Latimer’s 
letter ; and in March of this year of 1536 he was appointed 
Prior of Worcester Abbey, and performed his duties so 
admirably that on Latimer’s recommendation he was in 
1538 nominated suffragan Bishop of Bristol ; retaining, how- 


* Perhaps John Coton, Prior of Dunstable. Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 480, 


Hints of Reunion with Rome 217 


ever, his office as Prior till the suppression of religious 
houses, when he became the first Dean of Worcester. 

On the same day that Latimer thus wrote to Cromwell, 
Catherine of Arragon died peacefully at Kimbolton Castle, 
protesting to the last that she, and no other, was Henry’s 
true and lawful wife. However widely opinions differ as 
to the merits of the great question connected with her 
marriage, all agree in recognising the many virtues of the 
sorely tried and much-injured queen. Her death was an 
occurrence of national importance ; and politicians were 
once again filled with eager excitement, and anticipations 
of change. It was well known that Henry felt keenly the 
seeming danger of his position : he had, by his open rejec- 
tion of the Papal Supremacy, isolated himself from the 
other sovereigns of Europe. It was also notorious that 
Anne Boleyn was no longer supreme mistress of Henry’s 
heart ; and to the adherents of the Papal See it appeared 
possible to remove the hated Anne out of the way, and 
thus bring about a reconciliation between Henry and the 
Pope. The emperor was willing and even anxious to be 
reconciled to Henry. Hints of a possible re-union with 
Rome were ingeniously suggested by the diplomatists ; 
and if the Romish party did not actually conspire to plot 
against Anne’s life, as has been sometimes asserted, there 
is no doubt whatever that they rejoiced most sincerely in 
the prospect of her downfall. Even the infallible see itself 
condescended to court Henry, and to apologise in the 
blandest terms for the unpleasantly rigorous measures 
which had been employed in the long controversy about 
the royal marriage. 

Henry, however, was not to be so easily gained over: 
‘he had not acted,’ he declared, ‘on such slight grounds 
that he could in any sort depart from what he had done ; 
having founded himself on the laws of God, of nature, and 
honesty, with the concurrence of his Parliament.’* The 


* Burnet, vol. iii. p. 227. 


218 Latimer’s Episcopate 


overtures of reconciliation therefore were rejected ; and 
Henry, from policy, as well as from growing conviction, 
was compelled to draw closer to the position taken up by 
the Reformers. 

On February 4, 1536, Parliament and Convocation re- 
assembled after a prorogation of upwards a year; and 
Latimer would of course be summoned to London, to 
take his seat for the first time as a Peer of the Realm. 
The affairs of religion still occupied the chief attention of 
the legislature. One of the last acts of their previous 
session had transferred to the Crown that authority for 
visiting and reforming religious houses, which had for- 
merly been the exclusive prerogative of the Pope; and, 
during the close of the year 1535, ecclesiastical visitors, 
nominated by Cromwell, had been busy inspecting all the 
smaller religious houses, and prying with somewhat rough 
and irrepressible curiosity into the morals and pursuits of 
their inmates. The instructions on which the visitors 
acted have been printed by Burnet; and while they 
abundantly prove that Cromwell was well aware of the 
vices likely to be found in the security of the cloister, 
they do not confirm the assertion occasionally made, that 
the suppression of the monasteries, and not their reforma- 
tion, was designed from the first. 

When Parliament re-assembled, the reports of Crom- 
well’s Commissioners were read, disclosing a state of 
ignorance and vice such as had long been suspected, but 
which it now seemed impossible further to tolerate. 
‘Down with them, down with them,’! resounded on all 
sides : no one ventured to defend them ; and Parliament 
proceeded to deal with them in a very summary manner. 
‘Forasmuch,’ said the famous Act (27 Henry VIII. c. 21), 
‘as manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living is 
daily used and committed amongst the little and small 
abbeys, whereby the governors of such religious houses 


t Latimer’s Sermons, p. 123. 


The Religious Houses 210 


spoil, destroy, consume, and utterly waste their churches, 
farms, cattle, etc., to the high displeasure of Almighty 
God, slander of good religion, and to the great infamy of 
the King’s highness and the realm: . . . and forasmuch 
as continual visitations, for two hundred years and more, 
for reformation of such carnal and abominable living have 
been all in vain, and it only increased and augmented, so 
that without suppressing them there could be no reforma- 


tion of them.’ . . . In short, the smaller monasteries were 
handed over to the King and his heirs to be treated at his 
pleasure. 


It is unnecessary here to enter into any minute exami- 
nation and defence of the visitors’ reports. It may be 
admitted that the visitation was in some cases conducted 
in a summary fashion, the visitors evidently enjoying the 
excitement and sport of their occupation ;* and it is un- 
questionable that the monks, as the great upholders of the 
Papal Supremacy, were peculiarly obnoxious to Henry, 
and that their revenues were by no means unacceptable to 
his exhausted treasury. Some allowance may, therefore, 
be made for haste and exaggeration on the part of the 
visitors ; but whatever deduction may be claimed from 
the sweeping declarations of the statute, no reasonable 
doubt can be entertained of their substantial truth. The 
gross ignorance and licentiousness that had grown up in 
the idle seclusion of the religious houses, can be established 
by the concurrent testimony of an overwhelming body of 
witnesses. The letters of the visitors have been ques- 
tioned by men who admire the old monastic system for 
virtues which it had long ceased to possess; but the same 
charges had been adduced against the smaller houses for 
ages ; many of them had been already suppressed on the 
same grounds : Convocation and provincial councils had 
attempted in vain to reform their superabundant corrup- 
tions ; and they fell at last undefended, because the spirit 


* See the Letters on the Suppression of the Monasteries. 


220 Latimer’s Episcopate 


of piety, that had led to their establishment, had departed 
from them, and its place had been usurped by ignorance 
and depravity. 

None had been louder than Latimer in denouncing the 
vice and ignorance of the religious orders; but he by no 
means approved of the summary manner in which funds 
consecrated to religious purposes were diverted to feed 
the extravagance of the Court and the rapacity of the 
courtiers. He was anxious to see at least a few of these 
houses in every county cleansed from all their abuses, and 
liberally endowed for the sacred uses of piety and hospi- 
tality, and the religious education of the young. It is 
even said that at this critical period, instigated by Queen 
Anne (who, under his influence, had begun to imitate the 
devotional tendencies of her predecessor), he ventured to 
preach against the proposed appropriation of the revenues 
of the religious houses to mere secular purposes.? It is 
at all events certain, that with characteristic boldness and 
honesty, he remonstrated publicly against the base pur- 
poses to which some of the religious houses had been 
desecrated by the King. Some of the abbeys, it seemed, 
were appropriated for the use of the royal stud, and 
Latimer indignantly protested that ‘abbeys were ordained 
for the comfort of the poor ; and it was not decent that 
the King’s horses should be kept in them, and the living 
of poor men be thereby minished and taken away.’ The 
courtiers reproved him for his presumption in venturing to 
censure the acts of the sovereign, but the preacher was 
not to be silenced. ‘I spake my conscience,’ he replied, 
‘as God’s word directed me’; and he continued to main- 
tain that it ‘could not be for the honour of the King to 
take away the right of the poor.’ 

A few years later he again, as we shall see, urgently 
entreated Cromwell to spare the Abbey of Great Malvern, 


Collier, vol. iv. p. 331 ; no authority is given. 
2 Latimer’s Sermons, p. 93. 


Fy 44 ORE; 


->s ia ©! 
viel Wope 


Latimer’s Policy 221 


‘not for monkery ; God forbid ! but to maintain teaching, 
preaching, studying with praying, and good housekeeping. 
Alas, my good lord,’ he continues, ‘shall we not see two 
or three houses in every shire changed to such remedy ?’* 
Opinions may differ as to the wisdom of Latimer’s sugges- 
tions : many may believe that the bolder policy of ‘ pulling 
down the nests,’ of utterly abolishing what had been 
proved incapable of reformation, was the wiser one ; but 
his attitude on this important question is strikingly in 
keeping with the whole tenor of his character as we have 
hitherto seen it exhibited in his life. 

In the absence of any official record of Latimer’s occu- 
pation during this spring, we are much indebted for some 
curious notices of him to the letter of a gossiping London 
curate that has been fortunately preserved among the 
Cotton MSS.2, Thomas Dorset, curate of St. Margaret’s in 
the Lothbury, having, as he ingenuously admits, ‘ nothing 
to do,’ resolved to go to Lambeth to the Archbishop’s 
Palace, and see what was passing there. 

‘So,’ he proceeds, ‘I took a wherry at Paul’s Wharf, 
wherein also was already a doctor named Doctor Crook- 
horne which was sent for to come to the Bishop of Canter- 
bury ; and he before the three bishops of Canterbury, of 
Worcester (Latimer) and Salisbury, confessed that he was 
rapt into heaven, where he saw the Trinity sitting in a 
pall or mantle or cope of blue colour, etc.’ 

The reader need not be troubled further with the visions 
of this crazy fanatic. 

‘Then was there one Lambert’ [who will come before 
us again] ‘ within a seven days and later after that, which 
was detect of heresy to the three bishops. His articles 
was this that it was sin to pray to saints. Then came he 
to his answer. And the three bishops could not say that 


* Latimer’s Remains, p. 410. 
? Cleopatra, E. iv. 110 ; printed among the Letters on the Suppression 
of the Monasteries, not very correctly. 


222 Latimer’s Episcopate 


it was necessary or needful’ [to pray to saints]; but, yet 
he might not make sin of it ; and if he would agree to 
that he might have been gone by and by, but he would not. 

‘Then was he commanded to ward in the porter lodge, 
to remain there from that Monday till Friday night. 
Then he was set at large to go whither he would. He ~ 
came thither back again the morrow to know the Bishop’s 
pleasure, whether he was all free or not ; and then they 
opposed him again, and he abode by it’ [by his article, 
that it was sin to pray to saints]; ‘yet could they find’ 
[prove] ‘it by no Scripture that we ought to do it. The 
Bishop of Worcester (Latimer) was most extreme against 
him’ [surely not : more probably it was Shaxton, who had 
a very hot temper, as his letters show], ‘so he was put to 
ward again ; and on the next morning, which was Sunday, 
they sent both him and his articles to my Lord Chancellor, 
and there he remaineth in prison yet. My Lord of Norfolk, 
the Earl of Essex and the Count of Oxford wrote to those 
Bishops against him, and for that cause men suppose they 
handled him as to please them to get favour, which thing 
hath within this little while done great hurt to the truth, 
but what shall come of him God knoweth only.’ 

The reader must bear in mind that much of this is mere 
gossip, without any authority. It is obvious, for example, 
that the writer could not possibly know the contents of 
private letters from the Duke of Norfolk to Cranmer ; and 
it is in the last degree incredible that Latimer and the 
other Bishops would act as they did merely to secure the 
favour of a few courtiers. It must also be remembered 
that Lambert and the curate belonged to the party of 
advanced Protestants, who were anxious to move much 
more rapidly in the Reformation of religion than Cranmer 
or Latimer, and who were unhappily inclined to look upon 
all who did not agree with them in everything as enemies 
to the truth. After some other matter of no interest to us 
the writer proceeds ;— 


A Latimer Sermon 223 


‘On Sunday last’ [probably March 12, 1536], ‘the 
Bishop of Worcester (Latimer) preached at Paul’s Cross ; 
and he said that bishops, abbots, priors, parsons, canons 
resident, priests and all, were strong thieves, yea dukes, 
lords and all. The King, quod he, made a marvellous 
good Act of Parliament that certain men should sow 
every of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too 
little were it so much more to hang the thieves in England. 
Bishops, abbots, with such other, should not have so many 
servants, nor so many dishes; but to go to their first 
foundation, to keep hospitality, to feed the needy people ; 
not jolly fellows with golden chains and velvet gowns.’ 

A sufficiently bold sermon, such as we have already 
heard Latimer deliver at West Kington, but not the 
utterance, assuredly, of any time-serving sycophant eager 
to ingratiate himself with the courtiers of Henry.* 

On April 14, Parliament was dissolved. It had been 
summoned in November, 1529, and had thus sat for nearly 
seven years, an unusually long life for an English Parlia- 
ment at any period, and unprecedentedly long in the age 
of the Tudors. The unanimous verdict of modern Europe 
has placed the Long Parliament at the head of all Parlia- 
ments, as the pride and model of all representative institu- 
tions. But, in truth, England owes far more to the 
Parliament of the sixteenth century, which achieved for 
her religious freedom, than to the much-vaunted Parlia- 
ment of the seventeenth, which, with infinite bloodshed, 
and in a bungling and imperfect fashion, laid the founda- 
tions of our civil liberties. The early Parliament achieved 
the true liberty of England: ‘they found England in 


* The date of Dorset’s Jetter has been often, erroneously, given as 
1538, the reference to Lambert's trial having apparently perplexed 
those who knew only of his second trial in 1538. The letter is dated 
March 13, and speaks of Henry’s coming in to address Parliament ; 
now there was no Parliament in March, 1537 or '38, and before March, 
1539, Lambert had been burnt. ‘he date is, therefore, certain and 
indisputable. 


224 Latimer’s Episcopate 4 


dependency on a foreign power; they left it a free 
nation.’* They abolished that spiritual bondage which 
had so long kept the souls of the people in slavery and 
darkness. They defied the Pope; they suppressed the 
monasteries ; they had not hesitated to send to the block 
the most distinguished defenders of the Papal system ; 
they had curtailed the wealth and prerogatives of the 
clergy. They had not, indeed, proceeded far in the 
reformation of religion; but in establishing the great 
principle of the supremacy of the Crown in the room of 
the old assumption of the infallibility and supremacy of 
the Pope, they had laid a deep and firm foundation, on 
which by slow degrees and under happier auspices, the 
great fabric of toleration and religious purity was to rise. 

The new Parliament was summoned for*June 8; but 
before it assembled, the reign of Henry had been stained 
with its first dark, indelible blot, the execution of Anne 
Boleyn. Into the long and fiercely debated question of 
her guilt or innocence, it is unnecessary for us here to 
enter at length. Anne may have had her faults ; she may 
have been giddy and thoughtless, so as to provoke others 
to address her in language of familiar freedom unbecom- 
ing their station and her position as the wife of a jealous 
husband. But allowing full force to all that Mr. Froude 
has alleged in justification of Henry’s procedure, who has 
ever really doubted that Anne’s execution was very like a 
murder under form of law? ‘Her chief fault,’ Fuller has 
said, with equal truth and quaintness, ‘was Henry’s too 
great fondness for another.’ 


Henry himself, indeed, has furnished the most un- — 


answerable refutation of the pleas of his apologists. By 

marrying Jane Seymour (who had been for months the 

chief object of his affection) the day after Anne’s execu- 

tion, he has rendered it for ever impossible for any 

evidence to demonstrate his innocence. The secret pre- 
* Froude, vol. ii. 


: 
os 
a 


, 


The Case of Anne Boleyn 225 


parations for the bloody deed have never been all un- 
ravelled : it is certain that her arrest and execution were 
no hasty measures, dictated by sudden discovery of her 
guilt, but were carefully planned weeks before ; and it 
seems highly probable that equal care has been taken to 
destroy most of the documents that might have cast any 
light upon the perplexing subject. 

The attitude of Latimer and Cranmer and Cromwell in 
reference to Anne’s execution is not the least embarrassing 
side of this intricate question. Without claiming Anne 
as a decided and intelligent adherent of the Reformed 
opinions, she had unquestionably on more than one 
occasion befriended the Reformers; she had shown a 
marked pleasure in listening to Latimer ; her disgrace and 
death were sure to be hailed with triumphant glee by the 
Romanist party ; and one might have expected, therefore, 
from Latimer or Cranmer, some interference in her behalf, 
or at least some attempt to defend her character. Latimer, 
however, makes no allusion to her in any of his subse- 
quent sermons or letters that have been preserved: he 
may not have believed her guilty; he certainly has not 
intimated his conviction that she was innocent. How 
Cranmer acted, all the world knows. Every one has read 
the famous letter in which the gentle primate has left so 
faithful a picture of his own state of mind, hopelessly 
embarrassed between esteem for Anne, horror of the 
crime alleged against her, and suspicion that the charge 
was true : a letter which evidently perplexed Cranmer to 
pen as much as it has perplexed historians to interpret it. 

The truth seems to be that neither of these friendly 
prelates was even fully informed of the circumstances 
alleged against Anne; they had no knowledge of her 
guilt beyond what was communicated to them by Crom- 
well ; and his authority, to men who had so long known 
and so implicitly trusted him, would be sufficient, if not to 
produce conviction, at least to secure silence. Cranmer, 


15 


226 Latimer’s Episcopate 


indeed, from his position as primate, was required to lend 
his assistance, and to give the sanction of his name and 
character to the divorce of Anne. But the charge of 
adultery and incest was not brought against the unhappy 
Queen in Cranmer’s court. Anne simply appeared before 
him, and declared that there were lawful impediments to 
her marriage with Henry. What these were, the Arch- 
bishop does not appear to have inquired ; and subsequent 
historians have in vain exhausted their ingenuity in un- 
certain conjectures. On the strength of the Queen’s con- 
fession, and without further inquiry, Cranmer pronounced 
his sentence, that ‘the marriage between the King’s grace 
and the most excellent lady Anne was never good, but 
utterly void and of none effect’; a sentence curiously at 
variance with the other accusation against the unhappy 
Queen, for if she had never really been Henry’s wife, 
then it was plain that she could never have committed 
that crime of adultery for which she was executed. 
The death of Anne gave fresh vigour to the hopes of 
the Papal party. The great obstacle to any reconciliation 
with the Papal See was now removed ; and it seemed 
possible that by judicious measures Henry might be 
regained to his former allegiance. Overtures were made 
from Rome, to which Henry listened, not altogether un- 
willingly, in spite of the resolute declaration which we 
recently read. Campeggio, the deprived Bishop of Salis- 
bury, was cheered with visions of recovering his see ;* and 
ambitious Churchmen, believing that the tide of affairs in 


England had turned, began to dream of honours and 


wealth. 


An occurrence wholly unexpected dashed all these 


hopes to the ground. Just at this very crisis, there 

reached Henry, Cardinal Pole’s famous book on the Unity 

of the Church. Written years before, when the attitude of 

affairs had been entirely different, it only came to England 
* State Papers, Henry VIII., vol. vii. p. 656 note. 


The Unity of the Church 227 


in June, 1536, and its words of fierce denunciation rendered 
all hope of reconciliation with Rome for the time impos- 
sible. It urged the people to rebel against a tyrant more 
wicked than Saul who killed the priests, more sacrilegious 
than Dathan and Abiram who withstood the ordinance of 
God. It stigmatised him as ‘the vilest of plunderers, a 
thief and a robber,’ surrounded by bishops who were 
robbers and murderers, one for whose crimes no penalty 
would be adequate. Pole had written in defence of 
Henry’s marriage with Catherine ; but the accident which 
had so long delayed the delivery of his book, singularly 
enough, must have made him seem to be the advocate of 
Anne ; and the King must have winced under the stern 
appeals of the Cardinal’s impetuous eloquence. It was a 
masterpiece of sarcastic and indignant invective ; but for 
the time it ruined all the fond hopes of the Romish party 
in England. 

The new Parliament assembled June 8; and was 
mainly occupied with those legislative enactments which 
were rendered necessary by the divorce and execution 
of Queen Anne. 

On June 9g, there was also assembled the first Convoca- 
tion since the overthrow of the Papal Supremacy. It was 
a great occasion, and Cranmer, determining to make the 
most of it, had wisely selected Latimer to preach the 
opening sermon. No better choice could have been made 
in England ; no preacher saw more clearly the many gross 
abuses that still remained to be reformed ; no one could 
denounce them with happier irony or more unsparing 
severity. The complexion of the time called for bold- 
ness, and Latimer was not likely to err through excess of 
timidity. All the associations of the place would add 
strength to his invective. Four years before, he had 
stood at the bar, accused of heretical teaching; and in 
front of him, as he spoke, there sat conspicuous the men 
who had sought his life, and who were the determined 


228 Latimer’s Episcopate 


defenders of those abuses that had so long tainted and 
depraved the religion of the country. Urged by so many 
impulses, the preacher rose to the greatness of the occa- 
sion ; and his eloquence, bold as that of the old Jewish 
prophets, stirred the heart of the English nation to its 
very depths. 

He selected as his text the parable of the unjust 
steward, a sufficient intimation of the character of the 
coming sermon. The parable naturally led him to speak 
of the duties of the clergy, and to inquire whether they 
had been faithful in discharging them or not. The time 
had been when Latimer ran an imminent risk of being 
burned for venturing to insinuate the charge of unfaithful- 
ness against the clergy ; but now the rulers of the Church, 
who had been chiefly in fault, must listen in silence to 
words such as have been but seldom uttered in the ears 
of Convocation. 

‘Who is a true and faithful steward?’ asked the 
preacher. ‘He is one that coineth no new money, but 
taketh it ready coined of the good man of the house, and 
neither changeth it nor clippeth it,-but spendeth even the 
self-same that he had of his Lord, and spendeth it as his 
Lord’s commandment is; neither to his own vantage 
uttering it, nor as the lewd servant did, hiding it in the 
ground. Brethren,’ he proceeded, ‘I pray you ponder 


and examine well, whether our bishops and abbots, 


prelates and curates, have been hitherto faithful stewards 
or no; whether yet many of them be as they should be 
or no. Tell me now (as your conscience leadeth you), 
were there not some that despising the money of the 
Lord, either coined new themselves, or else uttered abroad 
newly coined of other? Sometime either adulterating the 
Word of God, or else mingling it? Sometime in the stead 
of God’s Word blowing out the dreams of men? While 
they preached thus to the people, that the redemption 
that cometh by Christ’s death serveth only them that died 


f 


4 


4 


) 


‘ad A Convocation Sermon 229 
before His coming, that were in the time of the Old 
Testament ; and that now redemption and forgiveness of 
ins, purchased by money, and devised by men, is of 
efficacy, and not redemption purchased by Christ ? While 
they preached, that dead images not only ought to be 
covered with gold, but also ought of all faithful and 
Christian people, (yea in this scarceness and penury of 
all things) to be clad with silk garments, and these laden 
with precious jewels ; and besides this ought to be lighted 
with wax candles, both within the church and without the 
church, yea, and at noondays? Whereas in the meantime 
we see Christ’s faithful and lively images, bought with no 
less price than with His most precious blood, to be an 
hungered, a-thirst, a-cold, and to lie in darkness, wrapped in 
all wretchedness, yea, to lie there till death take away their 
miseries : while they preached these will-works, that come 
but of our own devotion, although they be not so necessary 
as the works of mercy, and the precepts of God, yet they 
said, and in the pulpit, that will-works were more 
principal, more excellent (and plainly to utter what they 
mean), more acceptable to God than works of mercy ; as 
though now man’s inventions and fancies could please 
God better than God’s precepts, or strange things better 
than His own: while they thus preached that more fruit, 
more devotion cometh of the beholding of an image, 
though it be but a Paternoster while, than is gotten by 
reading and contemplation in Scripture, though ye read 
and contemplate therein seven years’ space: finally, while 
they thus preached, souls tormented in purgatory to have 
most need of our help, and that they can have no aid, but 
of us in this world ; 1 let pass to speak of much other such 
like counterfeit doctrine, which hath been blasted and 
blown out by some for the space of three hours together. 
Be these the Christian and Divine mysteries, and not rather 
the dreams of men? Be these the faithful dispensers of 
God’s mysteries, and not rather false dissipators of them? 


230 Latimer’s Episcopate 


whom God never put in office, but rather the devil set 
them over a miserable family, over a house miserably 
ordered and entreated. Happy were the people if such 
preached seldom. 

‘The end of your convocation shall show what ye have 
done ; the fruit that shall come of your consultation shall 
show hee generation ye be of. For what have ye done 
hitherto, I pray you, these seven years and more? What 
have ye brought forth? What fruit is come of your long 
and great assembly ? What one thing that the people of 
England hath been the better of a hair ; or you yourselves 
either more accepted before God, or better discharged 
toward the people committed unto your care? For that 
the people is better learned and taught now, than they 
were in time past, to whether of these ought we to 
attribute it, to your industry, or to the providence of God, 
and the foreseeing of the King’s grace? Ought we to 
thank you, or the King’s highness? Whether stirred 
other first, you the King, that he might preach, or he you 
by his letters that ye should preach oftener? Is it 
unknown, think ye, how both ye and your curates were, 
in manner, by violence enforced to let books to be made, 
not by you, but by profane and lay persons ; to let them, 
I say, be sold abroad, and read for the instruction of the 
people? ...% 

‘Now, I pray you in God’s name, what did you, so 
great fathers, so many, so long a season, so oft assembled 
together? What went you about? What would ye have 


brought to pass? Two things taken away—the one, that _ 


ye (which I heard) burned a dead man’ [Tracy] ; ‘the 
other that ye (which I felt) went about to burn one being 
alive’ [Latimer] : ‘him, because he did, I cannot tell how, 
in his testament withstand your profit ; in other points, as 
I have heard, a very good man; reported to be of an 
honest life while he lived, full of good works, good both 
to the clergy and also to the laity : this other, which truly 


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A Stirting Appeal 231 


never hurt any of you, ye would have raked in the coals, 
because he would not subscribe to certain articles that 
took away the supremacy of the King :—take away these 
two noble acts, and there is nothing else left that ye went 
about, that I know, saving that I now remember that 
somewhat ye attempted against Erasmus, albeit as yet 
nothing is come to light. Ye have oft sat in consultation, 
but what have ye done? Ye have had many things in 
deliberation, but what one is put forth, whereby Christ is 
more glorified, or else Christ’s people made more holy? 
I appeal to your own conscience.’ 

‘The children of this world,’ the parable declared, 
‘were wiser in their generation than the children of light’: 
and the history of the Church, Latimer proceeded to show, 
contained abundant illustrations of the maxim. The Church 
was full of the abuses which the children of the world 
had introduced for their own profit. They had invented 
‘canonisations and expectations, pardons, stationaries, and 
jubilaries.’ Wisest of all, however, were those that ‘begot 
and brought forth our old purgatory pick-purse, that was 
swaged ’ [assuaged ] ‘and cooled witha Franciscan’s cowl, 
put upon a dead man’s back, to the fourth part of his sins. 
It was a pleasant fiction, and, from the beginning, so 
profitable to the feigners of it, that almost, I dare boldly 
say, there hath been no emperor that hath gotten more by 
taxes and tollages of them that were alive, than these, the 
very and right-begotten sons of the world, got by dead 
man’s tributes and gifts.’ 

Then, rising into more earnest exhortation, he urged his 
hearers to diligence in reforming what had been too long 
suffered to injure the purity of the Church. _ 

‘Go ye to, good brethren and fathers: for the love of 
God, go ye to; and seeing we are here assembled, let 
us do something whereby we may be known to be the 
children of light. . . . Lift up your heads, brethren, and 
look about with your eyes, spy what things are to be 


232 Latimer’s Episcopate 


reformed in the Church of England. Is it so hard, is it so 
great a matter for you to see many abuses in the clergy, 
many in the laity? Abuses in the Court of Arches, and in 
the Consistorial Courts of the Bishops; in the ceremonies 
so often defiled by superstition ; in the holidays so generally 
abused by drunkenness and gambling; in the images and 
pictures, and relics, and pilgrimages, extolled and en- 
couraged by the clergy to the deception of the ignorant, 
in the religious rites of baptism and matrimony celebrated 
in an unknown tongue and not in the native language of 
the people; in the most solemn services of religion, 
masses, openly sold in violation of the most express 
ecclesiastical laws.’ 

Such abuses as these were patent in every part of 
England, and to allow them to continue any longer, 
ruining the souls of the laity while replenishing the coffers 
of the clergy, was to act the part not of faithful stewards 
but of the dishonest steward who beat his fellow-servants 
because his Lord delayed His return. ‘But,’ said the 
preacher in conclusion, ‘be not deceived, God will 
come, God will come, He will not tarry long away... . 
Therefore, my brethren, leave the love of your profit ; 
study for the glory and profit of Christ ; seek in your 
consultations such things as pertain to Christ, and bring 
forth at the last somewhat that may please Christ. Feed 
ye tenderly, with all diligence, the flock of Christ. Preach 
truly the Word of God. Love the light, walk in the light, 
and so be ye the children of light while ye are in this world, 
that ye may shine, in the world to come, bright as the sun.’ 

The Great German Reformer himself never spoke with 
more energy or greater plainness; and one may well 
suppose that the members of Convocation were startled 
with an oration so widely different from the ordinary 
decorous and commonplace addresses customary before 
such an audience. The sermon was of course in Latin; 
but it was speedily translated into English; and the 


The Popular Response 233 


preacher’s words were read with avidity throughout the 
land. For the cause was eminently one that concerned 
the whole nation ; and no preacher was a better repre- 
sentative of the national mind on the subject than Latimer. 
He had refrained altogether from any subtle. discussions 
of what might be called profound theological questions ; 
to him, as to the people at large, it was a question not of 
belief but of life ; he complained not so much of what the 
Church taught, as of what the clergy practised; not so 
much of false doctrine corrupting the orthodoxy of the 
Church’s creed, as of wretched falsehoods and impostures 
poisoning the religious life of the people. His eminently 
practical turn of mind happily led him to take exactly that 
view of the reformation of religion which was likely to 
attract the attention of his countrymen. Theological 
discussions on doctrines even of the utmost importance, 
have never excited so profound an interest in England as 
in some other countries ; the national mind seems to have 
little aptitude for them, and in Latimer’s time Englishmen 
were not sufficiently versed in Holy Scripture to be 
competent judges; but plain practical matters, such as 
those which the preacher pressed on the notice of Con- 
vocation, were within every one’s capacity, and appealed 
to every one’s experience ; and it is not surprising that 
the eloquence of the preacher evoked a loud response 
from the common people. 

What were the thoughts that passed through the 
minds of the members of Convocation as they listened 
to Latimer? Did their hearts glow with the generous 
desire to repair the errors and faults of past generations ? 
Were they ashamed of their career as false and unprofit- 
able stewards? Or were they determined, at all hazards, 
to maintain those corruptions which furnished them with 
their princely revenues? Their deeds speedily showed 
whether they were to be considered ‘children of the 
world,’ or ‘children of the light.’ 


234 Latimer’s Episcopate 


The Lower House of Convocation proceeded to business; : 


and, as if actuated by the energy of Latimer’s sermon, 
they compiled a lengthy list of evils in doctrine and in 
practice that urgently called for a reform. But the 
gravamina of Convocation were very different from the 
abuses which Latimer had condemned. It was not the 
monstrous doctrine of purgatory, the delusion that a man 
who had spent his life in sin could be saved after death by 
money and masses ; it was not such teaching as this that 
they desired to see reformed. The fatal and dangerous 
heresies which they hoped the Bishops would summarily 
suppress were such as these, ‘that priests should be 
allowed to marry,’ ‘that the laity should receive the 
communion in both kinds,’ ‘that images ought not to be 
reverenced,’ ‘that it was not a sin to eat meat in Lent,’ 
‘that auricular confession, absolution, and penance were 
neither necessary nor beneficial,’ ‘that prayer to the saints 
was as vain as throwing a stone against the wind,’ ‘that 
holy water, holy bread, hallowed candles and such like 
things were mere ignorant delusions,’ etc. These and 
other opinions, tinged a little in some matters with the 
violence of the Continental Anabaptists, yet not inaptly 
styled by Fuller ‘the Protestant religion in the ore,’ were 
the dark blots which Convocation wished to expunge from 
the fair face of the Church; and, that there might be no 
doubt of their intentions, they complained of the circula- 
tion of what they styled heretical books (of which the Bible 
in English was of course the chief), and of the patronage 
extended to men who ‘were suspected both for belief 
and manners.’ It was plain, therefore, that Convocation 
having consented with the worst possible grace to acknow- 
ledge the Royal Supremacy, was determined to resist to 
the uttermost all attempts at any further reformation of 
religion. 

And yet there were not wanting signs of the times which 
might have convinced them of the hopeless nature of the 


Theriey for Reformation 235 


cause to which they were thus committing themselves. 
On all sides the adherents of the Reformation were in- 
creasing in numbers and influence; and with such a 
sovereign as Henry on the throne, it was sheer folly to 
hope that the old supremacy of the Church could ever be 
restored. One trivial incident that occurred when they 
assembled to deliberate might have sufficed to show them 
that they were living in changed times. Cromwell, the 
King’s Vicar-General in ecclesiastical matters, was unable 
to be present at their first meeting, but sent Petre, one of 
the visitors of the monasteries, as his representative ; and 
this man, the deputy of a deputy, claimed and obtained as 
his right, the chief seat in the assembly next to the Arch- 
bishop, to the great indignation of many of the members. 
Next day, Cromwell appeared in person, and in virtue of 
his office, seated himself above them all: a plain indica- 
tion that the Royal Supremacy was not a mere empty 
phrase, and that Henry did not intend to sleep over his 
new prerogative. 

Convocation had been summoned for a purpose of 
prime importance, to compile a creed and a canon of 
religious ceremonies suitable to the altered state of the 
times. When Parliament abolished the Papal Supremacy 
in England, they had expressly protested their unshaken 
attachment to the old creed and worship of the Church. 
But Parliament was unable to restrain the course of public 
opinion ; and even Henry himself could not avoid being 
influenced by the loud demand for reformation that now 
began to rise from almost every part of the country. The 
voice of Latimer exposing the endless practical abuses of 
the clergy, had produced an impression all the more 
powerful because the facts were undeniable; and.the 
laity impatiently called for relief from a burden that was 
become intolerable. And, in London especially, there 
were other reformers, bolder than Latimer; men well 
versed in the theology of the Reformation on the Conti- 


236 Latimer’s Episcopate 


nent, who saw that no reformation would be of avail which 
stopped short with abolishing external abuses, and who 
demanded, therefore, the removal from the creed of the 
Church of those doctrinal errors from which the practical 
corruptions had sprung. The whole country was ringing 
with the din of theological strife; doctrines and cere- 
monies were fiercely debated; division and discord 
prevailed, and seemed almost to threaten a civil war. 
Modern rulers would probably regard this as the normal 
and proper religious condition of a country; but Henry’s 
theory of his duty as King of England compelled him to 
devise some means for restoring unity and peace, and 
this was the great problem submitted to the Convocation 
of 1536. 

It was a subject evidently of the greatest importance 
both in its immediate and its ultimate bearings on the 
Church of England; and as Latimer was present as a 


member of Convocation, it is natural that their proceed- — 


ings should engage much of our attention. By a piece of 
rare good fortune, moreover, a report of the debates on 
this momentous question has been preserved to us by one 
who was present and shared in them. Alexander Alane, 
or Alesius, a Scotch theologian, and a friend of Luther and 
Melanchthon,* was taken down to the Convocation by 
Cromwell, and to him are we indebted for a graphic and 
interesting picture of the first debate in the first Protestant 
Convocation of the Church of England. On Cromwell’s 
entrance, all the bishops and prelates rose up and did 
obeisance to him as vicar-general; and when he had 
returned their salutation he sat down in the highest place, 
and the proceedings began. ‘ Right against Cromwell,’ to 


t He had been driven from St. Andrews for heresy, and after some 
years’ residence in Germany, he came to England in 1535 at the invita- 
tion of Cranmer and Cromwell. Henry was very courteous to him, 
and made him Divinity-reader at Cambridge. Alesius, however, had 
conscientious scruples as to his position, and returned to London, where 
he practised as a physician : see his rare tract On the Authority of the 
Word of God, etc, 


Debate in Convocation 237 


use the words of Alesius, ‘sate the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, after him the Archbishop of York [Lee], and then 
London [Stokesley], Lincoln [Longland], Salisbury 
[Shaxton], Bath [Clerk], Ely [Goodrich], Hereford 
[Fox], Chichester [Sampson], Rochester [Hilsey], and 
Worcester [Latimer], and certain other whose names I 
have forgotten ; all these did sit at a table covered with 
a carpet, with certain priests standing about them.’ 

. Cromwell, in an admirable address, reminded them of 
the purpose for which they were assembled, viz.: ‘to 
determine certain controversies which at this time be 
moved concerning the Christian religion and faith, not 
only in this realm, but also in all nations through the 
world.’ The King, he assured them, studied day and 
night to set a quietness in the Church, and he could not 
rest until all such controversies were fully debated and 
ended through the determination of Convocation and 
Parliament. 

‘And,’ he proceeded, ‘he desireth you, for Christ’s sake, 
that all malice, obstinacy, and carnal respect set apart, ye 
will friendly and lovingly dispute among yourselves of the 
controversies moved in the Church, and that ye will conclude 
all things by the Word of God, without all bawling or scold- 
ing. Neither will His Majesty suffer the Scripture to be 
wrested and defaced by any glosses, any papistical laws, 
or by any authority of doctors or councils ; and much less 
will he admit any articles or doctrines not contained in 
the Scriptures, but, approved only by continuance of time 
and old custom and by unwritten verities as he were wont 
to do.. His Majesty will give you high thanks if ye will 
set and conclude a godly and a perfect unity, whereunto 
this is the only way and mean, if ye will determine all 
things by the Scripture, as God commandeth you; which 
thing His Majesty exhorteth and desireth you.’ 

If these were indeed the sentiments which Henry had 
commissioned Cromwell to utter before Convocation, they 


a? 


238 Latimer’s Episcopate 


were admirably noble and wise, and indicated to the rival 


theologians what is in truth the only way whereby a godly : 


and a perfect unity can ever be established in the Christian 
Church. 


The Bishops rose up ‘to give thanks to the King’s 


majesty for his fervent desire and study towards an unity, 
and for his virtuous exhortation’ ; and immediately pro- 
ceeded to discuss the project thus submitted to them. It 
speedily became apparent that this venerable assembly, 
which was expected to devise some scheme for composing 
the fierce religious strife that embroiled England, was itself 
violently divided in opinion. Almost at the outset of the 
debate, the subject of the sacraments, their nature, their 
efficacy and their number, was as a matter of course intro- 
duced ; and immediately all hope of unity was dissipated. 
Stokesley, the great champion of the old party in the 
absence of Gardiner, who was on the Continent, main- 
tained the orthodoxy of the current teaching on the 
nature and number of the sacraments; and, forgetting 
the King’s injunction to appeal only to Scripture, he 
fortified his position by what he called ‘ unwritten 
verities,’ and by copious citations from what Alesius, in 
his rough unceremonious way, styles ‘stinking glosses, and 
old lousy writers.’ Lee, Longland, and others supported 


Stokesley ; Cranmer, Fox, and Latimer opposed him, 


The debate waxed fierce, and the disputants diverged 
widely from their point. Alesius himself, at the request 
of Cromwell, joined in the discussion, with the eager 
alacrity of one who was not only an ardent Reformer, but 
was also perfectly familiar with every feature of the con- 
troversy, and enjoyed a theological debate as only a Scotch 
divine can do. 

It is unnecessary to add that no decision was arrived at, 
for Convocation were not agreed as to the ultimate standard 
by which the truth of their opinions was to be determined : 
and the debate on ‘a godly unity’ ended, so far as Con- 


A Noble Speech 239 


vocation was concerned, in fierce and angry warfare. To 
the general reader the report of the discussion would be 
dry and uninteresting : one noble speech, however, uttered 
by Fox, Bishop of Hereford, deserves to be placed on record 
for the admiration of all Englishmen. 

‘Think ye not,’ he said, addressing the prelates who sat 
around him, ‘that we can by any sophistical subtleties steal 
out of the world again the light which every man doth see. 
Christ hath so lightened the world at this time that the 
light of the Gospel hath put to flight all misty darkness, 
and it will shortly have the higher hand of all clouds, 
though we resist in vain never so much. The lay people do 
now know the Holy Scriptures better than many of us. And 
the Germans have made the text of the Bible so plain and 
easy by the Hebrew and the Greek tongue, that now many 
things may be better understood without any glosses at all 
than by all the commentaries of the Doctors. And more- 
over they have so opened these controversies by their 
writings that women and children may wonder at the 
blindness and falsehood that hath been hitherto. . 
There is nothing so feeble and weak, so that it be true, 
but it shall find place and be able to stand against all 
falsehood. ‘Truth is the daughter of time, and time is the 
mother of truth ; and whatsoever is besieged of truth 
cannot long continue ; and upon whose side truth doth 
stand that ought not to be thought transitory, or that it 
will ever fall. All things consist not in painted eloquence 
and strength or authority: for the truth is of so great 
power that it could neither be defended’ [7.e. resisted ] 
‘with words, nor be overcome with any strength, but after 
she hath hidden herself long, at last she putteth up her 
head and appeareth, as it is written in Esdras, “A King is 
strong, wine is stronger, yet women be more strong, but 
truth excelleth all.”’ 

Stokesley, however, was not to be driven from his 
position ; ‘it was all a delusion,’ he said, ‘to believe that 


240 Latimer’s Episcopate 


there was no other word of God but that which every 
sowter and cobler read in their mother tongue’; there 
were many unwritien verities, mentioned by the old doctors 
of the Church, received from the Apostles, which, he main- 
tained, were of equal authority with Scripture, and might 
be called ‘the Word of God unwritten.’ 

The debate was adjourned, but was never concluded ; 
for it was now all too manifest that the King’s design had 
proved abortive, and that Convocation were not likely to 
produce any resolutions that might promote religious unity 
in England. Still Henry did not relinquish the work which 
he had undertaken. Modern statesmanship would have 
left the rival theologians to settle their differences by argu- 
ment and debate, or would have taken refuge in universal 
toleration, and perfect freedom of creed and worship. 
But Henry conceived himself to be distinctly responsible 
as the religious guide of the people whom he ruled ; and 
Convocation having failed to discover any means of re- 
storing ‘ peace and unity,’ he himself undertook the task, 
and, to use his own words, felt himself ‘constrained to put 
his own pen to the book, and to conceive certain articles 
necessary to be set forth, read and taught for avoiding of 
all contention.’ ? 

The ‘Articles’ thus referred to constituted the first 
authoritative exposition of the doctrines of the Church of 
England after it had thrown off the supremacy of the 
Papal See: and historians have not sufficiently observed 
that though they bore to have been ‘agreed upon by the 
bishops and the most discreet and best-learned men of the 
realm, after long and mature deliberation and disputation,’ 
they were yet in reality the production of Henry’s own pen. 
The King had from his early years displayed a wonderful 
fondness for theological discussion ; and Cromwell was 
scarcely using the language of courtly flattery when he 
declared in Convocation that Henry ‘by his excellent 


* See Henry’s letter, in Wilkins, vol. iii. p. 825. 


The Ten Articles 241 


learning knew these controversies well enough.’ There 
is, therefore, nothing incredible in the assertion that 
Henry himself was really the author of the ‘Ten Articles,’ 
as his proclamation declares him to have been ; and this 
fact materially assists us in understanding their peculiar 
theological teaching. They embody neither the opinions 
of Stokesley and his adherents, nor those of Cranmer and 
his party ; still less, of course, do they reflect the views of 
bolder Reformers such as Alesius ; they are not even to be 
regarded as a compromise in which the opposing parties 
agreed to meet as on neutral ground ; they simply repre- 
sent the theological beliefs of Henry at this precise moment 
of his reign, the beliefs, that is, of one, who found himself 
compelled to depart in some respects from the old orthodoxy 
of his youth, but was reluctant to adopt any new opinions 
or practices. 

Such being the origin of the Articles, the reader will not 
expect to find in them any startling changes, or any very 
great progress in sound theology and purified worship. 
Stokesley and the theologians of the old school would 
indeed see in them many causes of offence. Alesius and 
the more ardent Reformers would regret many omissions. 
Even Latimer and Cranmer would be dissatisfied with 
them ; yet, on the whole, the Articles may be viewed as 
approaching somewhat more nearly to their creed than to 
that of any other great religious party in the country ; for 
they, like Henry, diverged slowly and reluctantly from the 
old formulze and the old ritual to which they had been so 
long accustomed. 

The Articles were fen in number, and were, briefly, as 
follows :* 

I. The Articles of our Faith: all men should hold as true 
those things which are comprehended in the whole Canon 
of the Bible, and in the three Creeds. 


* Cleopatra, E. v.: printed in Burnet, vol. iii. p. 198, etc., and 
frequently elsewhere.- 
16 


q 


242 Latimer’s Episcopate 


II. The Sacrament of Baptism: this was ‘instituted by 
Christ as a thing necessary for the attaining of everlasting 
life ; infants, as well as adults, receive in it remission of 


* 


sins and the favour of God ; it is never to be repeated; © 


the opinions of the Anabaptists are detestable heresies. 
III. The Sacrament of Penance: this was also instituted 
by Christ, and is so necessary to salvation, that no man 


who sins after baptism, can be saved without it ; auricular — 


confession is to be considered expedient and necessary. 

IV. The Sacrament of the Altar: transubstantiation was, 
of course, affirmed in the strongest terms. 

V. Fustification: here it was acknowledged that the 
mercy of God and the merits of Christ’s passion were the 
only sufficient and worthy causes of our justification ; yet, 
contrition, faith, and charity, on man’s part must concur, 
and good works must follow. 

VI. Images : these, it was said, had been used in Old 
Testament times, and tolerated in New, and might, there- 
fore, still be retained in the Church to kindle and stir men’s 
minds ; but the rude people must be taught not to kneel 
or offer to them, but only to God. 

VII. Honouring of Saints : saints, it was declared, ought 
to be honoured, but not with that honour due only to God, 
nor with the hope of obtaining from them that which God 
alone could bestow. 

VIII. Praying to Saints. this was praised as a laudable 
custom ; but,it was added, grace, remission of sin, and sal- 
vation can only be obtained of God through the mediation of 
Christ. 

IX. Rites and Ceremonies : all laudable customs, rites and 
ceremonies were to be retained, such as vestments, sprink- 
ling of holy water, bearing candles on Candlemas Day, 
giving ashes on Ash Wednesday, carrying palms on Palm 
Sunday, creeping to the cross on Good Friday, etc. But 
withal, the people were to be taught, that none of these had 
any power to remit sin, but only to lift up the mind to God. 


Defects of the Ten Articles 243 


X. Purgatory: the practice of praying for souls departed 
was countenanced, it was asserted, by the Book of 
Maccabees and ancient Doctors ; and might, therefore, it 
was maintained, be continued. All other questions, 
however, about the dead, where they were, or what they 
suffered, should be remitted to Almighty God : and all the 
abuses that had so long existed and had so mightily swelled 
the revenues of the Church, the belief that the Pope’s 
pardons, and masses at scala cali could deliver souls from 
purgatory, were to be utterly abolished. 

Such was the first ‘Confession of Faith’ of the 
Reformed Church of England: drawn up by the King, 
subscribed and sanctioned by Convocation, taught to the 
people by royal proclamation. One cannot but regret its 
meagreness, its sanction of several theological errors, its 
countenance of practices which had invariably been 
corrupted into superstitious abuses ; still it was a consider- 
able step in the right direction ; and when we remember 
that it represented the opinions not of the most advanced 
Reformers, but of the most cautious and conservative, we 
may admit that no contemptible progress had been already 
made in England in the reformation of religion. The 
creed was designed by Henry as an instrument to promote 
peace and religious unity among his subjects: probably 
the great majority of intelligent Englishmen welcomed it 
as not unfairly representing their own beliefs ; certainly, 
only a small minority were as yet prepared to advance any 
farther. With all its defects, Latimer, we may be sure, 
welcomed it with the warmest gratitude ; he affixed his 
signature to the Articles with unusual care, and his hand- 
writing almost for the only time is plain and legible. * 

It is not improbable that Cranmer and Latimer were 
consulted by Henry in the compilation of the Articles. 
Latimer’s opinion seems to have been asked, for example, 
on the subject of purgatory, and though Henry did not 

* The original is among the Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, E. v. 


244 Latimer’s Episcopate 


choose to adopt his views on this important point, he 
condescended to discuss the question with him. Among 
the Cotton MSS. is preserved a curious letter containing 
Latimer’s arguments against purgatory, with Henry’s 
marginal animadversions in defence of the customary 
doctrine of the Church. Both are in the handwriting of 
the respective disputants. Latimer rests his belief on 
inevitable inferences from Holy Scripture, and on the 
teaching of the greatest of the Fathers—Jerome, Augustine, 
Cyprian, and Chrysostom. He admits, indeed, that many 
of the Fathers had so expressed themselves as to lend a 
sanction to the belief in purgatory; but he claims for 
himself the right to differ from the Fathers, and protests 
against ascribing to them that authority which belonged 
only to Canonical Scripture. Whatever was uncertain as 
to the teaching of the Fathers, one thing, he maintained, 
was indisputably certain, that no such purgatory as had 
been preached for the last three hundred years could be 
established from their writings. Henry’s replies are 


feeble and trifling, more like a scholastic quibbler than — 


a king.* Latimer concludes with a _ characteristic 
argument of a practical kind: ‘The founding of monas- 
teries argued purgatory to be’ [for they were usually 
founded to provide for perpetual prayer for the departed 
in purgatory]; ‘so the putting of them down argueth it 
not to be. What uncharitableness and cruelness seemeth 
it to be to destroy monasteries, if purgatory be! Now it 
seemeth not convenient the Act of Parliament to preach 
one thing, and the pulpit another clean contrary.’ In 


other words, Latimer reminded Henry that to retain 


purgatory was to stultify the past legislation of his reign ; 
but Henry was not convinced ; he continued for years to 
believe, and to enforce upon others the belief, in purgatory ; 


and his last will, written some years, however, before his 7 


t The paper is Hg ae in Strype, and in Latimer’s Remains, p. 245; 
from Cleopaira, E. v., but the date is uncertain. 


Latimer in the Lords 245 


death, provided that prayers should be said for the repose 
of his soul. 

Latimer was exemplary in his attendance on his duties 
as a member of the House of Lords : what share he may 
have taken in the conduct of the business of the House can- 
not, of course, now be ascertained, the parliamentary elo- 
quence of that day having perished and left no record: he 
was, however, regularly in his place, and was, indeed, only 
three times absent during the whole session. 7 

To the month of June of this year, shortly before the 
preaching of his famous sermon, may probably be referred 
a brief and obscure letter to Parker, afterwards Archbishop 
of Canterbury, the only letter to this Cambridge friend 
that has been preserved. 

‘Mine own good Master Parker: Salutem : and as yet 
I have devised nothing, nor yet will, till I have spoken with 
the King’s ,:ate and have passed through the next 
Parliamert, and then what I shall alter and change, found 
and confound, you shall not be ignorant thereof; vale’ 
[farewell]. ‘‘And doas Master Latimer should move you to 
do, Ostendete-ipsum mundo. Delitescere diutius nolito ; operare 
bonum dum tempus habes. Veniet nox quum nemo poterit 
operari. Notum est quid potes: fac non minus velis quam 
potes: Vale, Tuus of Worcester, H. Latymer.” [Show 
yourself to the world: do not remain longer hid: work 
while you have a suitable season. The night will come in 
which no man shall be able to work. What you can do is 
- well known : do not be content to do less than you can 
do.]? 

The labours of Parliament and Convocation were 
finished by July 20; and we may take for granted that 
Latimer would immediately return to his diocese, where 
his presence was urgently needed. For all England was 


? Lords’ Fournals. 


2 British Museum, Additional MSS. 19,400, No. 1 of the new 
arrangement, 


246 Latimer’s Episcopate 


swarming with idle ecclesiastics, thrown loose upon society 
by the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and wander- 
ing from place to place fanning into a flame such latent 
sparks of discontent as existed. It became, therefore, an 
important part of his work to protect his diocese from any 
mischief that might be excited by the teaching of such 
turbulent spirits. And as soon as he reached home he was 
required to watch the proceeding of some troublesome 
preacher who had apparently been attacking the Reformers 
with violence. The ever-watchful Cromwell had summoned 
that preacher to London to answer for himself; and 
Latimer sent up the sermon, with the following letter :— 

‘Right honourable Sir: Salutem plurimam ; and because 
I hear your mastership hath sent for Master Coots, which 
preached at Hales, to come to you, therefore I do now 
send unto you his sermon, not as he spake it, if he spake 
it as his hearers do report it, but ratherask-.. h modified 
and tempered it, since he perceived that he should be 
examined of it. And yet, peradventure, you will not judge 
it everywhere very well pondered. He seemeth to 
be very well studied in Master Moore’s books’ [ie., Sir 
Thomas More], ‘and to have framed him a conscience 
and a judgment somewhat according to the same. And to 
avoid all falsities, he appeareth to stick stiffly to unwritten 
verilies. I would fain hear him tell who be those new 
fellows that would approve no sciences but grammar. 
Qui vos audit, etc.; obedite preepositis, etc.; qui ecclesiam non 
audivit, etc.’ [i.e.. such verses as ‘He who heareth you 
heareth me,’ ‘Obey them that are set over you,’ ‘He 
who does not hear the Church, let him be to you a heathen 
man’]; ‘serve him gaily for traditions and laws to be 
made of’ [by] ‘the clergy authoritatively ; and to be 
then observed of the laity necessarily, as equal with God’s 
word, as some say that he both thinketh and sayeth, etc.’ 
(as, indeed, Stokesley had said lately in Convocation). 

‘As far as I can learn of such as have communed with 


The Injunctions 247 


him he is wilily witted, Dunsly learned’ [learned in Duns 
Scotus, scholastic theology], ‘ Moorly affected, bold not a 
little, zealous more than enough: If you could monish 
him, charm him, and so reform him, etc., or else I pray 
you, inhibit him my diocese. You may send another, 
and appoint him his stipend, which God grant you 
do.’ ? 

With such spirits abroad in his diocese, Latimer’s life 
during the summer of 1536 would be sufficiently anxious 
and uneasy. He would, moreover, be diligently occupied 
in seeing that the ‘Injunctions,’ issued by Cromwell as 
the ‘King’s vicegerent in all jurisdiction ecclesiastical,’ 
were duly observed by his clergy. These injunctions, 
while they in the main enforced the ‘Articles’ recently 
‘devised and put forth by the King,’ contained also 
several admonitions to the clergy, which would be peculiarly 
acceptable to Latimer. The people were not to be 
encouraged to undertake pilgrimages; they were to be 
told that they would please God better by the true exercise 
of their bodily labour, providing for their families, than if 
they went on pilgrimage, and that it would be more 
profitable to their soul’s health to bestow that on the poor 
which they were wont to bestow upon images. The clergy 
were to reside on their livings, to spend their time in 
reading Scriptures, and to show a good example. Fathers 
and masters were to teach their children and servants the 
Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in 
the mother-tongue ; and the curates were to repeat them, 
clause by clause, in their sermons, till all were familiar 
with them. Moreover, all were to be brought up to work; 
no idleness was to be tolerated, lest there should afterwards 
be begging to the scandal of the nation.? In short, an 
admirably wholesome and practical reformation was every- 


* Cleopatra, E. v. 393 ; printed also by Strype, but, as usual, not very 
accurately : the date is uncertain, but cannot be later than July, 1536. 
2 Wilkins, vol. iii. Chapter House Papers, A. I. 


248 Latimer’s Episcopate 


where to be introduced ; and on the bishops and othersin 


authority devolved the responsibility of seeing that the 


injunctions were honestly put into execution. There 


would be no lack, therefore, of interesting and important 
work to occupy Latimer’s energy during the rest of this 
busy year. 

But the year was not to pass away in these peaceful 
pastoral cares. The thunder-clouds that had so long been 
accumulating in the sky at length burst into open storm. 
On October 2, an insurrection, excited chiefly by resent- 
ment for the suppression of the religious houses, broke 
out at Louth, in Lincolnshire. Headed by one Melton, a 
shoemaker, better known by his sobriquet of Captain 
Cobbler, the insurgents addressed the sovereign in language 
of respectful complaint, protesting against the dissolution 
of the monasteries, the innovations in religion, and the 
elevation of men of low birth to the privy council. Henry 
replied to them in terms of the most contemptuous 
defiance. He was amazed, he said, at the presumption 
‘of the rude commons of one shire, and that one the most 
brute and beastly of the whole realm,’* in daring to find 
fault with the prince whom they were bound ‘to obey and 
serve with lives, lands, and goods.’ An army was, at the 
same time, sent under the Duke of Suffolk, who by em- 
ploying temperate language, and making liberal promises, 


speedily quenched the rising flame: and, in a fortnight, 


most of the rebels quietly dispersed? This, however 
was but the prelude of the storm. 

The same messenger that brought the tidings of the 
quelling of the Lincolnshire revolt, brought intelligence of 
afar more formidable rising in Yorkshire. The same causes 
had produced this second insurrection ; but the leaders 
were men of higher social position, and of greater ability ; 

* Grafton’s Chronicle. 


2 See especially Froude, vol. iii: for the best and most copious accounts 
of the risings in Lincoln and York. 


The Pilgrimage of Grace 249 


and the rising at once assumed the dimensions of a great 
rebellion. The insurgents professed themselves the cham- 
pions of the Church; several of the dispossessed priests 
marched at their head with crosses, and a sacred banner 
was borne before them emblazoned with the five wounds, 
the crucifix, and the chalice. The leader, Robert Aske, 
was equal to the greatness of the occasion ; and from all 
quarters the disaffected flocked in crowds to join what was 
styled ‘The pilgrimage of Grace.’ York and Hull were 
seized ; and, with an army daily increasing in numbers, 
Aske directed his march towards London. 

At Court all was consternation and alarm, as great 
as when, two hundred years later, the Young Chevalier 
marched to Derby. Cromwell was unwearied in raising 
funds: Henry was anxiously collecting troops. Thirty 
thousand rebels were in the field ; and the royal armies 
_ did not muster one third of this number. The house of 
Tudor was tottering on the throne ; and the hopes of the 
old Churchmen waxed strong and bright. The elements, 
however, or rather the God of the elements, favoured 
Henry’s cause. The onward march of the insurgents was 
delayed by a sudden flood which rendered the Don impas- 
sable ; the Duke of Norfolk availed himself with admirable 
sagacity of every opportunity for interposing obstacles by 
suggesting negotiations and compromises: gradually the 
rebels dispersed ; the army of Aske melted away ; and in 
January, 1537, tranquillity was again restored. 

Latimer was at Hartlebury when these disturbances 
broke out; busied no doubt with his usual episcopal 
labours, yet keeping an eye on all suspicious persons, and 
watching every sign of the times in those perilous days. 
On October 19, ignorant apparently of the serious distur- 
bances in the North, he sent to Cromwell a suspicious 
prophecy that was circulating in his diocese, in the hope 
that his lordship (Cromwell was now Lord Privy Seal), who 
‘loved antiquities,’ would be able to ‘try the truth,’ 


am 


250 Latimer’s Episcopate 


and divine whether it threatened any danger to the State. * 
Cromwell was, of course, too busy to read the prophecy, 
an insane production of about one hundred and forty Latin 
Leonines, which Gedipus himself could not have construed ; 
but he believed, that in the crisis which had now occurred, 
and which threatened to annihilate all traces of the Reform- 
ation in England, some use might be made of Latimer’s 
eloquence and popularity. 

Latimer was accordingly summoned to London, that his 
voice might encourage and stimulate all loyal subjects in 
their devotion to the royal cause. On November 5 (a day 
which, however, had not yet become notable in English 
annals), Latimer preached at Paul’s Cross against the 
Northernrebels. The Epistle for the day (the twenty-first 
Sunday after Trinity), ‘ Put on the whole armour of God,’ 
seemed admirably suited for the occasion, and was natur- 
ally selected by Latimer as the theme of his discourse. 
The sermon, however, was by no means one of his most 
striking performances. He was somewhat out of his 
natural element; and he felt himself impeded by 
Cromwell’s advice tobe very discreet and cautious of giving 
offence to any that might be useful to Henry in the emer- 
gency. The customary energy and force of the preacher 
were therefore wanting ; and though once or twice during 
the sermon it seemed as if the wonted fire would again 
break out as he drifted towards those great abuses 
which he had so often denounced, caution prevailed and 
repressed the impetuous current of that eloquence which 
used to rouse the enthusiasm of his hearers.? 

His sermon, as we learn from one of his letters, gave 
general satisfaction to all who heard it; a sure indication 
that it was of a different type from his ordinary sermons, 


t Cleopatra, E. iv. : the prophecy is enclosed, but seems the produc- 
tion of a madman; it will neither scan nor construe. 

2 The sermon may be read in the Parker Society’s Edition of Latimer’s 
Works, p. 29, etc. 


— 


SS a 


Awaiting Instructions 251 


which were wont to be received with fiercely opposite 
emotions rather than with a general consent of approba- 
tion. 

Possibly on this occasion Latimer also paid a visit to 
Henry at Windsor : we may assume, however, that he was 
anxious to be at home again, and that as soon as his un- 
congenial task was over, he would return to his diocese, 
where so much still remained to be accomplished. He 
proposed to hold a general visitation ; but this could not 
be put into execution till he had received the necessary 
‘instructions’ and sanction of Cromwell. As soon, 
therefore, as his Christmas festivity was ended, he again 
wrote to Cromwell for ‘further knowledge of his 
pleasure.’ 

‘According to your commandment, I was occupied at 
Paul’s Cross upon Sunday next after your departure from 
London’ [to consult with Henry at Windsor], ‘not other- 
wise, I trust, than according to your discreet monition and 
charitable advertisement, so moving to unity without any 
special note of any man’s folly, that all my lords there 
present seemed to be content with me, as it appeared by 
the loving thanks that they gave. And now, Sir, I look 
for your letters of instructions and further knowledge of 
your pleasure as touching our visitations. Moreover I 
have bestowed the two benefices that Silvester Darius’ 
[an Italian non-resident pluralist] ‘had, the one to Doctor 
Bagard, my chancellor, the other to Doctor Bradford, my 
chaplain ;* for the King’s grace charged me to bestow 
them well. But now, after that we have begun, we have 
a scruple how to proceed and end: if according to form 
hitherto used, it will not be done without great tract of 
time. The King’s grace said no more to me but “Give 

* Bagard’s Letter, acknowledging the benefice, is in the State Paper 
Office, c. i. 16. He had been one of the Canons of Wolsey’s College 
in Oxford : Bradford, a Cambridge man (not to be confounded with 


John Bradford, the martyr), was a zealous and distinguished Reformer, 
who had already suffered for circulating the New Testament. 


252 Latimer’s Episcopate 


’em, give ’em.” ‘You know my chancellor’s scrupulosity’ — 
[stickling for proceeding according to precedent]; ‘and 
I myself, though I am not altogether so scrupulous, yet — 
I would it were done inculpably and duly. If we might 
know your advice herein, we should be very well riddled 
and eased. Finally, this bringer, my chaplain, would be ~ 
a poor suitor to your lordship, in a poor man’s cause. I 
know not well the matter ; but if you would give him the 
hearing, etc. I am the bolder, because I think you are ~ 
set up of God to hear and to help the little ones of God — 
in their distress.* 
‘ Postridie Stephani Sancti’ : (Dec. 27, 1536). : 
Bristol was the most important town in Latimer’s — 
diocese, and, as in other large towns, a considerable — 
number of the inhabitants were zealous Reformers. We — 
have already seen the fierce disturbances excited in that 
town by Latimer’s preaching there in 1533; and at the 
close of 1536 the discord broke out afresh. During the 
progress of the rebellions in the North, some of the Bristol 
clergy who were opposed to the Reformation, had per- 
mitted their sympathies with the rebels to appear some- 
what too plainly. They had neglected to speak against 
the Pope’s usurped authority, as the law directed ; and 
some of them, while the issue of the conflict was still 
doubtful, had even omitted to pray for the King. They 
had also embraced the opportunity of abusing their con- — 
gregations for the readiness with which they had adopted 
‘new-fangled heretic opinions ;’ and, with equal want of © 
caution and of loyalty, had intimated their anticipation 
of a coming day of retribution, when the recent legislation — 
of Parliament against the old ceremonies of the Church 
would be repealed. Such proceedings of course provoked — 
a spirit of violent debate and retaliation ; and, to allay the 
strife, Latimer went to Bristol in the beginning of 1537, 
and preached in several of the churches; but the dis- — 
* State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, ubi supra. 


pa gy ae OT a ae 


Attacks on Latimer 253 


turbances still continued. Blasphemous parodies of the 
Lord’s Prayer were posted on the doors of St. Mary 
Redcliffe. The priests from their pulpits violently 
denounced the people; and some of the parishioners 
responded with the rough logic of the fist, for ‘ black 
eyes’ were complained of. 

Latimer came in for the chief share of the maledictions 
of the enemies of the Reformation. They considered him 
the great patron and fountain of all the heresy of the 
diocese. ‘The Bishop of Worcester,’ said one, ‘is a 
heretic, and it is a pity he has not been burned;’ ‘I 
trust to bring a fagot,’ said an insubordinate priest, ‘and 
to see the Bishop of Worcester burned, and it is a pity 
that ever he was born.’? It was again found necessary to 
issue a Royal Commission (May 7), to inquire into the 
cause of the disturbances, and peace was not restored 
till some of the most refractory were imprisoned. Possibly 
none of the other towns in Latimer’s diocese were so 
much addicted to violent controversy as Bristol: yet this 
may be taken as a sample of the fierce agitation that 
marked the times; and with such a tide of religious 
strife raging around him, it will readily be imagined 
that Latimer’s life was anything but a scene of placid 
enjoyment. 

Neither Parliament nor Convocation assembled in 1537, 
but Latimer was not allowed to devote the summer to his 
long-contemplated visitation of his diocese. The Articles 
of Religion which had been issued some nine months 
before, had already been found unsatisfactory. They 
were hurriedly drawn up, as we saw, by Henry himself ; 
and the experience of a few months’ use brought many 
deficiencies to light. They were ambiguous, and an 
ingenious priest could easily interpret them in a sense 


* There is a large bundle of depositions before the Commissioners, 


a 3a I have read among Cromwell’s Papers, in the State Paper 
ce. 


254 Latimer’s Episcopate 


widely different from that contemplated by Henry; and 
thus, instead of promoting union, they tended to increase 
and perpetuate division. They were much too meagre, 
moreover, to serve as a manual for the uninstructed : they 
needed commentary and elucidation, which the parish 
clergy were in many cases too ignorant to supply. 
Henry, therefore, summoned a Commission of the 
leading divines to meet in London, and prepare a 
more copious work for the guidance of the nation. 
Latimer was of course one of these Commissioners ; 
and the leaders of both parties were fairly represented : 
there was, however, no one to represent, as Alesius had 
done in the Convocation, the opinions of the more learned, 
and more advanced Reformers of the Continent. 

It was about the end of April when the Commission 
met in London, and their deliberations were not con- 
cluded till August. No record of the progress of their 
debates has been preserved,t nor would it have been 
of much value if it had come down to us: the subjects 
discussed have been better treated by other disputants. 
On the Romish side, Stokesley was again tie chief 
advocate ; the Reformers trusting mainly to Hilsey, 
Fox, and Cranmer. Latimer, in truth, may rather be 
said to have been present at the deliberations than to 
have taken any active share in them. With his usual 
undue disregard of everything that was not plainly and 
immediately practical (as if erroneous beliefs could be 
long entertained without in a greater or less extent 
producing their effect on the lives of those who main- 
tained them), he had never yet sufficiently studied the 
great doctrinal differences between the Church of Rome 
and the Reformed theologians; and the discussions 
seemed to him unnecessarily subtle and perplexing. 


: Papers, apparently prepared for discussing some of the points 
of difference, are preserved among the Cotton MSS., and partly 
printed in Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. ii. p. 340. 


Conferring with Rebels 255 


He did not very well understand the debates: and 
he was so thoroughly sick of the interminable delibera- 
tions that he wished himself ‘poor parson of poor 
Kington again.’ The discussions were certainly long- 
winded enough: for three months the divines met and 
deliberated and debated, sometimes so fiercely that Fox 
regretted the absence of Cromwell, whose authority might 
have brought matters to a speedy termination. It was, 
moreover, a sultry, unhealthy season; the plague was 
raging with extraordinary violence in London, striking 
down the servants of the bishops in their residences ; 
and Latimer, longing to commence the visitation of his 
diocese, fretted at the immoderate delay. 

In the very middle of the deliberations, probably in the 
commencement of June, Latimer was instructed by the 
King and Council to go to the Tower and converse with 
some of the leaders in the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace,’ then 
lying under sentence of death. He had preached, it will 
be remembered, in the preceding November, against the 
Northern rebels ; and this was possibly the reason why he 
was sent to confer with the leaders, to induce them to 
acknowledge their guilt and to reveal the secret sources 
of the conspiracy; at all events, we may be sure, the 
change of labour was agreeable to him, and he would feel 
more at home discussing the practical duty of obedience 
with the rebels, than attempting to follow the subtleties of 
patristic logic. He has himself left a brief summary of his 
‘travail in the Tower.’ 

‘There was,’ says he, ‘Sir Robert Constable, the Lord 
Hussey, the Lord Darcy ; and the Lord Darcy was telling 
me of the faithful service that he had done the King’s 
majesty. “And” [if] “I had seen my sovereign lord in 
the field,” said he, “and I had seen His Grace come 
against us, I would have lighted from my horse, and taken 
my sword by the point, and yielded it into His Grace’s 
hands.” ‘ Marry,” quoth I, “but in the mean season ye 


256 Latimer’s Episcopate 


played not the part of a faithful subject, in holding with 
the people in a commotion and disturbance.” ’* 


It is not known how he succeeded with these rebel 
lords: but in the end of June, Lord Darcy was executed — 
on Tower Hill as a traitor ; and the other two suffered at 


Hull and Lincoln. 


The summer passed on, and still the debates had not 
reached their termination. The plague had driven both — 
Henry and Cromwell from London, a circumstance not — 


4 


favourable to any speedy conclusion of the discussions; 


and in the absence of these higher authorities, the bishops _ 


were surrounded by crowds of supplicants anxious for 
favours. Among others, some members of the University 
of Cambridge had eae ete enough applied to Latimer for 


advice and assistance ; and he, as naturally, had recourse — 


to Cromwell, the Chancellor of the University. To this 


we owe a renewal of the correspondence with Cromwell, — 


which, after so long a silence, is particularly acceptable to 
the biographer. 


‘Sir,—These two Fellows of St. John’s College, Cam 
bridge’ [Nevell and another, who carried the letter], ‘do — 
come to your lordship in the name of the whole College © 


to the intent to show to your lordship the tenor of their 
statute as touching the election of a new Master: and I 
doubt not but with a word or two you may make Master, 


Day,? or any else eligible by their statute, as Mr. Nevell, 


yet Fellow of the same College, can commune with your 
lordship further, as shall please you; for they have great 


need of your lordship’s charitable favour in many suits— 


and traverses appertaining unto them not yet perfectly 


established. I trust also your lordship doth remember — 
poor Clare Hall’ [Latimer’s old college, now, alas! — 
suffering under a Master opposed to the Reformation], — 


t Fourth sermon before Edward VI., Sermuns, p. 163. 
2 Day was made Master, July 27, 1537. 


A “Bullock” 257 


‘that the Master’ [John Crayford] ‘neither transgress 
the statute himself, nor yet bring into his room Mr. 
Swynbourne, of the same house’ [who did come in, 
however], ‘a man, as they say, of perverse judgment, 
and too factious for such a cure. Mr. Nevell shall deliver 
to you a bill of the gravaments’ [complaints] ‘of two o1 
three of the Fellows, most given to good letters. 

‘I pray God preserve you, and send you hither shortly 
again, that we might end’ [these tiresome debates], ‘and 
go home into our diocese, and do some good there. My 
lord of York hath done right well at Paul’s Cross as 
touching the supremacy, and as touching condemnation 
of the rebels’ [whom he was suspected of favouring] ; 
‘as well as he did before, if not better. Dr. Barnes’ 
[our old Cambridge friend], ‘I hear say, preached in 
London this day a very good sermon, with great modera- 
tion and temperance of himself. I pray God continue 
with him, for then I know no one man shall do more 
good. 

‘I send you here a bullock’ [diminutive Papal missive, 
playfully so nick-named], ‘which I did find amongst my 
bulls ; that you may see how closely in time past the 
foreign prelates did practise about their prey. If a man 
had leisure to try out who was king in those days, and 
what matters were in hand, perchance a man might guess 
what manner a thing illud secretum quod nosti’ [that 
private matter you know of] ‘was; such cloked con- 
veyance they had. 

‘H. L. W. 

‘Sub diem Swythineum.’* (July 15, 1537). 


At length, towards the end of July, the deliberations 
approached completion : the divines, after sufficient dis- 
cussion, had ‘subscribed the declarations ;’ the book 


* State Paper Office: one word, supremacy, is illegible, but is clearly 
the right word in the passage. 
17 


258 Latimer’s Episcopate | i bs 


was almost ready for publication; it only remained that 
it should be submitted to Cromwell and Henry, to receive 
their approbation and (if necessary) their corrections, that 
so it might be issued with the sanction of royal authority — 
as the Articles had been. Unexpected difficulties, how-— 
ever, supervened ; and, indeed, a mortification was in 
store for the divines, which they little anticipated. With- — 
out the active assistance of Cromwell, no further steps” 
could be taken for the accomplishment of their work ; 
and both Cranmer and Latimer wrote to solicit his aid. — 
Latimer’s letter is as follows :— 


‘This day, Sir, which is Saturday’ [July 21, as appears — 
from Cranmer’s letter written the same day*], ‘we had 
finished, I trow, the rest of our book, if my Lord of © 
Hereford’ [Fox] ‘had not been diseased, to whom surely ~ 
we owe great thanks for his great diligence in all our 
proceedings. Upon Monday I think it will be done 
altogether, and then my lord of Canterbury will send it 
unto your lordship with all speed ; to whom also’ [7e., — 
to Cranmer] ‘if anything be praiseworthy, bona pars 
laudis optimo jure debetur’ [a large share of the praise 
is justly due]. ‘As for myself I can do nothing else but 
pray God that when it is done it be well and sufficiently 
done, so that we shall not need to have any more such © 
doings. For verily, for my part, I had lever’ [rather] 
‘be poor parson of poor Kington again, than to continue — 
thus Bishop of Worcester ; not for anything that I have © 
had to do therein, or can do, but yet forsooth it is a 
troublous thing to agree upon a doctrine in things of such — 
controversy, with judgments of such diversity, every man, ~ 
I trust, meaning well, and yet not all meaning one way. — 
But I doubt not but now in the end we shall agree both — 


oe 


7 


4 

t ‘There remaineth,’ says Cranmer, ‘no more hut certain notes of — 
-the Creed, unto which we be agreed to subscribe on Monday next.’ 
Remains, p. 338. <! a 


oo 


Defensor Fidei 259 


one with another, and all with the truth, though some will 
then marvel’ [as they well might]. ‘And yet if there 
be anything either uncertain or unpure, I have good hope 
that the King’s highness will expurgare quicquid est veteris 
fermenti’ [purge out the old leaven] ; ‘at least, may give 
it some note, that it may appear he perceiveth it, though 
he do tolerate it for a time, so giving place for a season 
to the frailty and gross capacity of his subjects. 

‘Sir, we be here not without all peril ; for beside that 
two hath died of my keeper’s folks out of my gate-house,? 
three be yet there with raw sores ; and even now Master 
Nevell cometh and telleth me that my under-cook is fallen 
sick, and like to be of the plague. Sed duodecim sunt hore 
diei, et termini vite sunt ab Eo constituti, qui non potest 
falli; neque verius est tamen, quod nascimur, quam quod 
sumus morituri’ [there are twelve hours of the day, and 
the limits of our life have been fixed by Him who cannot 
be mistaken; and it is not more true that we are born 
than that we shall die]. 

‘As for Dr. King’s matter’ [some unknown attack 
against the royal prerogative, apparently], ‘I refer to 
your knowledge of justice, and to the use of your charity ; 
but as touching Defensor Fidei’ [Defender of the Faith], 
‘I think that title due to the King. As for my lord of 
Hailes’ [Whalley, Abbot of Hailes], ‘I fear he will be 
too cocket’ [elated] ‘now with his great authority and 
promotion; his friends can jest upon such a bishop’ 
[as Latimer]? ‘that can with complaining promote, and 
would he should complain more. But I wot what I 
intended, let them jest at large. 


‘They die almost everywhere in London, Westminster, and in 
Lambeth they die at my gate, even in the next house to me.’ Cranmer 
to Cromwell, p. 338. 

? The meaning can only be guessed at : it would seem that Latimer, 
in whose diocese Hailes lay, had complained of the abbot, but that his 

_complaint had been disregarded, and the abbot’s power and authority 
had been increased. 


260 Latimer’s Episcopate 


‘But now, Sir, this bringer, Thomas Gybson, is a poor 


suitor to your lordship that he may by your favour have ~ 


the printing of our book. He is an honest, poor man, 
and will set it forth in a good letter, and sell it good 
cheap ; whereas others do sell too dear, which let many 
to buy. Dr. Crome and other my friends obtained of me, 


4 


not without some importunity, to write unto you for him: — 
but I wot not what to do, saving that I know that you — 


wot both what is to be done and what may be done. I 
nothing else but commit him to your charitable goodness. 
‘Yours, HuGo WyGorn. 
(July 21, 1537.) ‘More hastily than wisely.’ 


The book, the fruit of so many deliberations, was, 
without loss of time, despatched to Cromwell, and was 
by him submitted to Henry ; but from some reason that 
has never been explained, it did not receive that formal 
royal sanction which the compilers desired, and indeed 
had almost a right to expect. It had been intended, 
apparently, that the book should contain, by way of 


preface, a letter from the Commissioners requesting the 


royal sanction of their work, followed by the King’s reply 


acceding to their request, and stamping the book with — 


royal authority. For some unexplained reason, however, 
Henry’s reply did not appear in the book, which was 
consequently sent abroad simply with the recommendation 
of the Commissioners unsupported by the King, the Con- 
vocation, or the Parliament. 

As if to make the mystery more inexplicable, a minute 
of a reply by Henry is preserved in the State Paper Office? 
in which, while regretting that he had not had time 
to do more than merely ‘as it were to taste their book,’ 
he yet expressed himself satisfied with the work, ordered 
it to be printed, and recommended that part of it should 


* State Paper Office : printed in the State Papers, vol. i. p. 563. 
2 Chapter House Papers, A. 1.15. 


The “ Bishops’ Book” 261 


be read every Sunday and festival-day for the next three 
years, so that ‘the whole contents might be engraven on 
the hearts’ of the people. Above everything, the King 
exhorted them to be diligent in expounding the book, to 
avoid all ‘wrestling of the meaning,’ to have no more 
‘thwartings or contentions,’ and, in short, ‘to utter to the 
people all that is God’s Word purely and plainly.” The 
letter is an admirable one, deserving of the highest praise ; 
but, as has been said, it was not prefixed to the book, and 
the people, acute enough to observe this apparent want 
of royal sanction, styled the work ‘The Bishops’ Book.’ 
This ‘ Bishops’ Book,’ it need scarcely be added, is the 
work better known to the student of English literature as 
the Pious and Godly Institution of a Christian Man. It was 
intended, as we have seen, to supplement the deficiencies 
of the Articles, and consists mainly of copious expositions 
of the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, 
and the Sacraments. In its theology it does not differ 
materially from the Articles; like them, it admits many 
of the theoretical principles contended for by the 
Romanists, whilst it sedulously employs every precaution 
to guard the people from ignorant and superstitious 
abuses. In one point, indeed, the Institution seemed to 
concede more to the Romanists than the Articles had 
done: they had treated only of three sacraments, Baptism, 
the Lord’s Supper, and Penance, and had thus seemed 
to cast discredit on the other four so-called sacraments 
of the Romish theologians ; whereas the Institution ad- 
mitted all the seven sacraments of the Church of Rome, 
and carefully expounded their meaning. This, however, 
was the inevitable result of the still defective theology of 
the leading English Reformers; indeed, having in the 
Articles admitted Penance to be a sacrament, the same 
reasoning would render it logically impossible to reject the 
claims of the other so-called Romish sacraments. 
Although, therefore, the Institution seemed more in 


262 Latimer’s Episcopate — t : 


‘ 


accordance with the traditional Catholic theology than — 
the Articles, this must not be construed as a success on — 
the part of the Romanists. ‘It was plain,’ saysa Roman — 
Catholic historian,t ‘from the view of such forms of — 
doctrine, that the interest of the old religion was every — 
day declining.” Some superficial observers, indeed, 
rejoiced in what they considered a victory for the old 
faith, and maintained that the ‘new book had restored — 
all things to their old use :’ and some modern writers, 
impatient at the slow progress made by the English 
Reformers in dogmatic theology, have echoed the same — 
sentiment. To both, Cranmer’s reply is unanswerable : 
‘If men will indifferently’ [impartially] ‘read these 
declarations, they shall well perceive, that purgatory, 
pilgrimages, praying to saints, images, holy bread, holy — 
water, holy days, merits, works, ceremony, and such ~ 
other, be not restored to their late accustomed abuses ; — 
but shall evidently perceive that the Word of God hath 
golten the upper hand of them all, and hath set them in 
their right use and estimation.’? The supremacy of Holy 
Scripture was the really fundamental point; and that 
once established, it might be hoped that everything else 
would follow in due time. 

It must not be imagined for a moment, that in signing 
the belief in transubstantiation (which was the doctrine 
of the Institution), Cranmer, Latimer, and the other 
Reforming Commissioners, were doing violence to their 
own convictions. Even Protestant historians have not 
always been sufficiently careful to observe the exact order 
of events, and to mark the progress of the English 
Reformers in their doctrinal opinions. Latimer and 
Cranmer, in 1537, believed in transubstantiation as firmly 
as Gardiner or Stokesley ; and it was not for some years 
that either of them abandoned this erroneous belief. In 


® Dodd, Church History, p. 122. 
2 Cranmer’s Letlers; Remaius, p. 351. 


Merits and Demerits 263 


Latimer’s case, there had probably never yet been any 
sufficiently serious consideration of the grounds on which 
the more advanced Reformers rejected the monstrous 
Romish dogma. Cranmer, however, had carefully studied 
the question, he had read all that had been written by 
Zwingle and G£colampadius, and was still of opinion that 
the doctrine of the real presence as taught in the Romish 
Church was supported ‘by evident and manifest passages 
of Scripture, and commended with clearness and diligence 
by the earliest ecclesiastical writers,’ was, in fact, ‘ founded 
upon a solid rock,’ which no argument could shake. 
By-and-by, we shall find both Cranmer and Latimer, on 
closer study of Holy Scripture, reject the doctrine as 
equally opposed to Scripture and to common-sense. 

Apart from this countenance given to the Romish 
doctrines of the Sacraments, and its manifest reluctance 
to abolish any ceremony that had ever been practised in 
the Church (if only it could possibly be purged from 
superstitious abuses), the Institution is a truly admirable 
book, ‘a right godly book of religion,’ as a contemporary 
styled it, excellently adapted to instruct the people in the 
service of God and the practical duties of life. Many 
pious and learned divines of the highest eminence have 
freely acknowledged its merits ; and by general consent 
it is admitted to have well fulfilled the high promise of 
its title, and to have been in truth ‘a godly and pious 
institution of a Christian man.’ 

One other merit, of no slight value in a manual intended 
to be repeatedly read in public assembly, it incontestably 
possessed, that of a grand and solemn majesty of style 
suited to the greatness of the subject. Froude has justly 
remarked that ‘in point of language, the Institution is 
beyond all question the most beautiful composition that 
had as yet appeared in English prose.’ Its sentences 


* See his very interesting letter to Vadian, written in 1537. Zurich 
Letters, p. 13, etc. 


264 Latimer’s Episcopate 


move with that grave, melodious, rhythmic march so — 
impressive on the ear, and which reaches its perfection — 
in the Book of Common Prayer and the Ecclesiastical — 


Polity. It is to Cranmer, in all probability, that this 
feature in the Institution is due, and when posterity learns 
to appreciate more fairly than at present what it owes to 
the patient, peace-loving primate, it will honour him as 
one of the great fathers of English prose. 

In the meantime, July had gone, August was begun, the 
King’s consent and sanction had not yet been obtained for 
the Institution ; and Latimer, sick of the delay, was anxious 
to return to his diocese and proceed with the long-meditated 
visitation for which Cromwell had granted the necessary 
letters. Probably he had never been so disgusted with 
London before, yet it was at this crisis of vexation and 
disappointment, that he was cheered by what is perhaps 


the brightest occurrence in Henry’s reign, an occurrence — 
so unexpected that we cannot but trace in it the finger of — 


God directing the policy of the earthly monarch. 
The reader has not forgotten the burning of the Bibles 
at Paul’s Cross, the vehement denunciations of Tindale’s 


New Testament, and the diligent search for all copies of 


the prohibited book. The laws against reading or pos- 
sessing an English New Testament had never yet been 
repealed ; although, since the downfall of the Papal 
Supremacy, they had been almost inoperative. Still, the 
Bible could not be openly printed or circulated in the 
English language ; the ‘better translation’ promised by 
the Bishops was not even begun, and was never likely to 


be finished ; and Cranmer and Latimer longed in vain for 


some English Bible which might be freely read by all 
English people. 

Judge, therefore, of Cranmer’s surprise and joy wed 
Richard Grafton, a member of the Grocers’ Company, 


waited on him with a ‘new translation of the Bible in 


new print,’ submitting it to his judgment, in hope that if 


: 


An English Bible 265 


he approved it he would procure the King’s consent to 
have it ‘sold or read of every person, without danger of 
any act, proclamation, or ordinance heretofore granted to 
the contrary.’ The Archbishop read it with pleasure, 
liked it ‘better than any other translation heretofore 
made,’ and sent it to Cromwell, entreating him to do what 
he could to obtain Henry’s licence. Was it likely that 
Henry would consent to this unexpected request ? 
Henry did consent immediately, with perfect cordiality. 
Cranmer had sent the Bible to Cromwell on August 4 ; 
on the 13th of the same month, he wrote again, to thank 
the Secretary for the great boon which had thus been 
procured for the English nation. Latimer had also seen 
the Bible, with what pleasure we may imagine! and he, 
too, was all gratitude to Henry and Cromwell. 

Cranmer could not sufficiently express his joy ; and we, 
who know what England owes to its English Bible, will 
not think his language exaggerated, when he thus writes 
to Cromwell :—‘ These shall be to give you the most 
hearty thanks that any heart can think, and that in the 
name of all them which favoureth God’s Word, for your 
diligence at this time in procuring the King’s highness to 
set forth God’s Word and His Gospel by His Grace’s 
authority. For the which act, not only the King’s majesty, 
but also you shall have a perpetual laud and memory of all 
them that be now, or hereafter shall be, God’s faithful 
people and the favourers of His Word. And this deed 
~ you shall hear at the great day, when all things shall be 
opened and made manifest.’ * 

‘The king’s heart,’ said the wise man of old, ‘is in the 
hand of the Lord, and He turneth it whithersoever He 
will.” How was it to be explained that Henry, after with- 
holding his sanction from the book compiled by his own 
Commissioners, should without a moment’s delay give his 
free consent to the open circulation of the English Bible 


* Cranmer’s Remains, p. 346. 


266 Latimer’s Episcopate 


which had been so frequently prohibited, and that in the 
version of Tyndale, whom he had persecuted to the death ? 
The last words of the martyr, as he perished at the stake 


in Vilvorde, had been, ‘ Lord, open the eyes of the King ~ 
of England ;’ and who could fail to recognise in Henry’s 


act the best answer to Tyndale’s prayer ?* 

Thus unexpectedly refreshed and cheered after the 
uncongenial labours of the summer, Latimer returned to 
his diocese in the end of August. The visitation was at 
last to be begun ; and he had, in consultation with Cranmer, 
determined upon the injunctions to be issued to the clergy. 
These injunctions we shall presently consider, and shall 
follow the Bishop in his visitation ; but first of all let us 
read his letter to Cromwell on some matters of less 
importance ; the bearer of the letter being one of that 
family of Lucy of Charlcote, known to all the world from 
its contact with Shakspere. 


‘Sir,—As touching all matters in the petitions of this 
Master Lucy, he himself shall be my letters unto your 
good lordship. Only I desire you so to use him, as far as 
may stand with right, that his goodwill toward all goodness 
may be encouraged by communing with you, and promoted 
by hearing of you. There be too few such gentlemen in 
the King’s realm. And he can open to you all together, 
as to the priest of Hampton’s judgment’ [ Hampton-upon- 
Avon, probably, beside Charlcote], ‘what proceedings it 
had. I would wish better judgments to be in some of the 
King’s judges, and more prepense favour towards reforma- 


a 
a 


4 


tion of things amiss in religion. There be many judgments, 


and yet few or none be brought to the Ordinary’s 
knowledge, after due form of the King’s acts. 
‘But now, sir, as for my brother prior’s matter,? my lord 
* The reader will find the best account of the whole transaction in 
Anderson’s Annals of the English Bible, vol. i. pp. 580, etc. 


2 In the Chapter House Papers, C. 4. 1., are many letters from the 
Prior of Worcester (Holbeach) to Cromwell. 


hea. ae 


An Episcopal Visitation 267 


of Hereford’s and mine, and Clare Hall’s matter [it] 
dependeth only of your opportune and behoovable re- 
membrance. As for St. John’s College, I can say no more 
but that all factions and affections be not yet exiled out of 
Cambridge : and yet, my good lord, extend your goodness 
thereunto, forasmuch as you be their High-Chancellor, 
that in your time they be not trodden under foot. As for 
Master Ponnes’ [unknown person], ‘sir, I assure you I 
am not so light of credence as he pretendeth me to be, as 
I can affirm unto you with certain and sure arguments, as 
you shall hereafter know all together ab origine’ [from the 
beginning]. 

‘ Postridie Laurentii at Hartlebury.’ * 

[September 6, 1537.] 


A visitation in times of change and reformation was, of 
course, very different from the peaceful and formal visita- 
tion of our days. It implied a personal inspection of the 
diocese, and a personal inquiry into the lives and doctrines 
of the clergy ; abuses. had to be removed, wrongs had to 
be righted, the law had to be explained, and provision 
made for the proper instruction of the people. The 
country, in general, was sunk in lamentable ignorance, and 
the grossest irregularities existed in the services of the 
Church ; and the diocese of Worcester, so long deprived 
of the energy of a resident bishop, was probably peculiarly 
fertile in abuses and corruptions. Thestate of the diocese, 
and the religious wants of the country at the time, may 
best be read in Latimer’s Injunctions ; for as there is no 
law against unknown vices, so neither would a bishop’s 
attention be directed against imaginary faults on the part 
of the clergy. The following are the Injunctions, copied 
from his Register :—? 


"State Paper Office; printed not quite accurately in Latimer’s 
Remains, p. 381. 
? They are almost the same as those issued in the diocese of Hereford 
Fox being unable to visit), by Archbishop Cranmer. Doubtless Latimer 
and Cranmer had drawn them up after much common consultation, 


ae 


268 Latimer’s Episcopate 


‘Hugh, by the goodness of God bishop of Worcester, 
wisheth to all his brethren curates grace, mercy, peace, 
and true knowledge of God’s Word, from God our Father, 
and our Lord Jesus Christ. 

‘Forasmuch as in this my visitation I evidently perceive 
that the ignorance and negligence of divers curates in this 
deanery’ [the injunctions were repeated in each deanery] 
‘to be intolerable and not to be suffered, for that thereby 
doth reign idolatry and many kinds of superstitions, and 
other enormities ; and considering withal that our sove- 
reign lord the King, for some part of remedy of the same, 
hath granted by his most gracious licence that the Scripture 
of God may be read in English of all his obedient subjects : 
I, therefore, willing your reformation in most favourable 
manner, to your least displeasure, do heartily require you 
all and every one of you, and also in God’s behalf command 
the same, according as your duty is to obey me as God’s 
minister, and the King’s, in all my lawful and honest com- 
mandments, that you observe and keep inviolably all these 
Injunctions following, under pain of the law :— 


a a 


‘First. Forasmuch as I perceive that ye neither have — 


observed the King’s Injunctions’ [issued by Cromwell as 
King’s ecclesiastical vicegerent in 1536] ‘nor yet have 
them with you as willing to observe them: therefore ye 
shall from henceforth both have and observe diligently 
and faithfully, as well special commandments of preachings, 
as other Injunctions given in his grace’s visitation. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, provide to have 
of your own a whole Bible, if ye can conveniently, or at 


the least a New Testament, both in Latin and English, 


before the feast of the nativity of our Lord next ensuing. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, do read over and 
study every day one chapter at the least, conferring the 
Latin and the English together, proceeding from the 
chapter from the beginning of the book to the end, having 
no necessary let’ [hindrance] ‘to the contrary. 


haw 
a ee 


An Episcopal Visitation 269 


‘Item. That you, and every one of you, provide to have 
of your own a book called The Institution of a Christian 
Man, lately set out of the King’s grace’s prelates by his 
grace’s commandment. 

‘Ttem. That in secret confession and making of testa- 
ments you excite and stir your parishioners from will- 
works to the necessary works of God, works of mercy 
and charity. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, do at all times 
the best that you can to occasion your parishioners to 
peace, love and charity, so that none of ye suffer the sun 
to set upon their wrath. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, provide to have a 
copy of these mine injunctions within thirteen days at the 
uttermost. 

‘Item. That you, and every one of you, shall from 
henceforth suffer no religious persons, friar, or other, to 
have any services in your churches, either trental,: 
quarter-service, or other. 

‘Item. That preaching be not set aside for any manner 
of observance in the church, as procession, and other 
ceremonies. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, do not admit any 
young man or woman to receive the sacrament of the altar, 
until that he or she openly in the church, after mass or 
evensong, upon the holiday, do recite in English the 
Pater. 

‘Item, That ye, and every one of you, from henceforth 
bid beads,? no otherwise than according to the King’s 
grace’s ordinance, lest long bead-telling let’ [hinder] 
‘fruitful preaching of God’s Word. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, as often as there 

* Trentals were groups of thirty masses, said three on each of ten 
festivals : sometimes called tricennals. 

? The bidding of beads had been regulated by ordinance in 1534, 


which specified for whom prayers were to be made and in what order ; 
the ordinance is printed in Cranmer’s Remains, pp. 460, etc. 


270 Latimer’s Episcopate 


is any marriage within your parish, exhort and charge your 
parishioners openly in the pulpit, amongst other things in 
your sermons, that they neither make nor suffer to be made 
any privy contract of matrimony, as they will avoid the 
extreme pain of the law certainly to be executed upon 
them. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, that be chantry 
priests, do instruct and teach the children of your parish, 
such as will come to you, at the least, to read English, so 
that thereby they may the better learn how to believe, how 
to pray, and how to live to God’s pleasure. 

‘Item. That no parson, vicar, curate, nor chantry priest, 
from henceforth do discostaas any lay person from the 
reading of any good books either in Latin or English, but 
rather animate and encourage them unto such things. 

‘Item. That ye, and every one of you, not only in 
preaching and open communication, but also in secret, say 
the Pater Noster, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. 

‘Item. That in praise time’ [? plague time] ‘no body 
be brought into the church, but be brought into the church- 
yard, that the peril of infection thereby may the better be 
avoided. 

‘Item. That no curate command the even to be fasted 
of an abrogate holiday’ [abrogated by royal proclamation 
of last year]. 

It is a strange, to us almost an incomprehensible state 
of religion, of which we get a glimpse through the aid of 
these Injunctions. Clergy who had no Bibles, not even a 
New Testament; sermons curtailed by long prayers for 


q 


the dead, or omitted altogether to give place to some — 


religious procession ; communicants who could not even 
say the Lord’s Prayer in English: surely here was a 


country that sadly needed reformation, and that promised — 


no lack of work to a diligent reforming bishop. Some of 
the particular grievances of this visitation we shall read in 
* Abingdon, Antiquities of Worcester Cathedral. 


~ 


CUCU Oe eee ee 


oo aaa 


Latimer’s Injunctions 271 


Latimer’s letters to Cromwell; but its general character 
must be left to our own imagination. With what unpleas- 
ant looks of ill-dissembled hatred the Bristol clergy would 
listen to the Injunctions of the Diocesan whom they had 
so fiercely opposed a few years ago ; how, in many parishes, 
complaints loud and deep would be brought by the people 
against priests who never preached, and whose lives were 
scandalous ; how priests, anxious to do their duties, were 
thwarted by superstitious parishioners and patrons with 
seditious tendencies ; all this, which must have sorely taxed 
the strength and patience of Latimer, must be filled up by 
conjecture. Take, for example, the following sketch of 
what occurred in a visitation, as a specimen of part of 
Latimer’s labour during September and October. 

‘I heard of a bishop of England that went on visitation,’ 
—it is Latimer himself that tells the story in one of his 
sermons before Edward VI.—‘and as it was the custom, 
when the bishop should come, to be rung into the town, 
the great bell’s clapper was fallen down, the tyall was 
broken, so that the bishop could not be rung into the town. 
There was a great matter made of this, and the chief of the 
parish were much blamed for it in the visitation. The 
bishop was somewhat quick with them, and signified that 
he was much offended. They made their answers, and 
excused themselves as well as they could : “It was a chance,” 
said they, ‘that the clapper brake, and we could not get 
it mended by-and-by ; we must tarry till we can have it 
done : it shall be amended as shortly as may be.” Among 
the other, there was one wiser than the rest, and he comes 
me to the bishop: “ Why, my lord,” saith he, “doth your 
lordship make so great a matter of the bell that lacketh his 
clapper? Hereisa bell,” said he, and pointed to the pulpit, 
“that hath lacked a clapper this twenty years. We have 
a parson that fetcheth out of this benefice fifty pound”’”’ 
[equal to £750] ‘ “every year, but we never see him,” 

* Sermons, p. 207. 


272 Latimer’s Episcopate 


Truly might Latimer speak of the negligence of the 
clergy as intolerable. 

Or, by way of illustrating the injunction that sermons 
should not be set aside for processions or idle ceremonies, 
let the reader consider the following incident that occurred 
to Latimer himself during the period of his episcopate :— 

‘I came once myself,’ he says, ‘to a place, riding on a 
journey homeward from London, and I sent word over 
night into the town that I would preach there in the 
morning, because it was holiday’ [St. Philip and St. James’s 
Day]; ‘and methought it was an holiday’s work. The 
church stood in my way, and I took my horse and my 
company, and went thither ; I thought I should have found 
a great company in the church, and when I came there, 
the church-door was fast locked. I tarried there half an 
hour and more: at last the key was found, and one of the 
parish comes to me and says, “Sir, this is a busy day with 
us, we cannot hear you; it is Robin Hood’s day”’ [May 
1]. ‘“The parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin 
Hood : I pray you let them not.” I was fain there to give 
place to Robin Hood : I thought my rochet should have 
been regarded, though I were not ; but it would not serve, 


it was fain to give place to Robin Hood’s men. It is no ~ 


laughing matter, my friends, it is weeping matter, a heavy 
matter, a heavy matter, under the pretence for gathering 
for Robin Hood, a traitor and a thief, to put out a preacher, 
to have his office less esteemed, to prefer Robin Hood 
before the ministration of God’s Word: and all this hath 
come of unpreaching prelates.’ * 

The greater religious houses were still in existence 
throughout the diocese of Worcester ; but were, as usual, 
exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop. Latimer, 
however, seems to have received authority to visit the great 
Abbey of St. Mary in his cathedral city ; and he issued to 
the Prior and the convent injunctions similar to those which 

* Latimer’s Sixth Sermon before King Edward. 


— > 


ee 


Pe a a 


“Se 


Visitation Complaints 273 


we have already seen issued for the use of the diocese at 
large ; some special articles being added to direct the 
proceedings of the monastery in their worship and at their 
daily meals. 

Of the special incidents of the visitation, and the nature 
of the complaints which came before him for redress, we 
have slight specimens in the two following letters addressed 
to Cromwell during its progress. 


‘My singular good lord, I doubt nothing but that your 
good lordship will extend your goodness to that poor priest, 
Sir Large,t in my conscience injured and wronged by 
means of one Mr. Clopton’ [a squire near Stratford-on- 
Avon], ‘which neither did hear him, nor, if he had, could 
judge his doctrine ; but zealously, for lack of right judg- 
ment, stirred the people against him, as Master Nevell can 
tell you, whom I do make my letters to you at this time. 
And thus I commit good Master Lucy to your goodness, 
and his whole cause. 

‘6 October. ‘Yours, H. LATIMER WIGoRN. 

‘ At Pershore in his visitation.’ ? 


The ill-used priest received redress, as appears from the 
next letter written eight days later from Warwick. 


‘Sr, as touching your request concerning your friend, 
Master Barker’ [that he might be made warden of the 
church of Stratford-on-Avon] [it], ‘shall be accomplished 
and done ; it shall not stick on my behalf. He seemeth a 
man, as your lordship doth say, of honest conversation, and 
also not without good letters. . Let them both’ [the actual 
warden and his would-be successor] ‘commence and con- 
clude ; I shall confer the resignation once’ [it is] ‘exhibi- 
ted unto me, according to your desire. Only I require two 


* Priests, it may be noted, were usually called ‘ Sir,’ 
* State Paper Office. 
18 


274 Latimer’s Episcopate 


things upon your good lordship: the one, that the poor 
college’ [collegiate church of Stratford] ‘be not bounden ~ 
for the pension, and to that Master Barker himself is agree- 
able, for I telled him plainly my mind therein, for it may — 
right well chance that Mr. Doctor Bell’ [the actual warden, — 
and Latimer’s successor as Bishop of Worcester] ‘do out- 
live Mr. Barker, and then the succeeder should come into 
a warm office, to be charged not alonely with (first) fruits — 
and tenths, but also with pension. The other, that your — 
lordship would persuade Master Barker to tarry upon it, — 
keep house in it, preach at it, and about it, to the reforma- — 
tion of that blind end of my diocese. For else what are 
we the better for either his great literature or good con- 
versation, if my diocese shall not taste and have experience — 
thereof? And the houses’ [of the clergy of the church in — 
Stratford], ‘I trow, be toward ruin and decay, and the — 
whole town far out of frame for lack of residence. When — 
the head is far off, the body is the worse. Thus I commit — 
altogether to your customable gentleness and charitable © 
goodness, which is not wont to regard more the wealthy 
and pleasant living of one body, than the necessary relief — 
of many souls.’ ; 

‘As to Sir Large, your commandment shall be done, — 
whose cause, in my mind, your lordship doth judge rightly: — 
malice to be in one part’ [viz. Squire Clopton], ‘and sim- — 
plicity in the other. But God shall reward you, that will — 
not suffer malice to prevail. Postridie Edwardi’ [day after — 
Edward’s Day] ‘at Warwick, visiting and busily alway.’* 

Cromwell, we fear, was too busy to pay much heed to ~ 
this letter from Latimer; for on October 12, two days — 
before it was written, the son so long hoped for was at — 
last born to Henry. The auspicious event occurred at © 
Hampton Court, and filled the hearts of all loyal subjects — 
with the greatest joy. Some modern historians, indeed, 


* State Paper Office : Latimer had at first concluded with the words ; 
‘written at Hartlebury,’ which he afterwards erased. 


"BO i 


The Birth of Edward VI. oe 


have ridiculed as extravagant the expression of extreme 
pleasure with which the birth of Edward was received ; 
but a very little attention to the peculiar circumstances of 
the country at the time will enable us to understand, and 
to approve the enthusiasm of the people. Henry had now 
reigned for eight-and-twenty years, his health was begin- 
ning to give way, and there was no heir to the throne. 
Elizabeth and Mary had been pronounced illegitimate by 
Parliament, and the succession of either at that time would 
have been the signal for a civil war. The progress of the 
Reformation had hitherto been owing in great measure to 
Henry ; and the Reformers were naturally anxious for the 
birth of an heir who should be brought up in their prin- 
ciples, and might be expected to continue the work which 
his father had begun. The Romish party, on the other 
hand, at least the more ignorant amongst them, were con- 
firmed in their secret belief of Henry’s wickedness in 
casting off his allegiance to the Pope by this visible 
curse of want of male heirs which seemed to have 
descended from heaven upon his guilty head. The suc- 
cession was insecure ; the continuance of domestic peace 
depended upon a single life; civil war, embittered by 
religious animosity, was inevitable if Henry should meet 
with any accident. The prospect, therefore, was suffi- 
ciently gloomy. 

All was changed by the birth of Edward. There was 
now an heir of unquestionable legitimacy, and the blessings 
of an undisputed succession and a stable government 
were secured to a nation which had not yet forgotten the 
horrors of a thirty years’ civil war. That in such circum- 
stances they should have welcomed the young prince with 
a joy that surpassed all bounds was only natural and 
appropriate : his birth was an inestimable blessing to the 
country, and Latimer’s letter of congratulation, which has 
been ridiculed for its overcharged extravagance, expresses 
no more than was felt by all honest, pious Englishmen. 


276 Latimer’s Episcopate ‘ 


‘RicHT HONOURABLE, salutem in Christo Fesu. And, — 
Sir, here is no less joying and rejoicing in these parts for 
the birth of our Prince, whom we hungered so long, than ~ 
there was, I trow, inter vicinos’ [among the neighbours], — 
‘at the birth of St. John Baptist ; as this bearer, Master 
Evans, can tell you. God give us all grace to yield due 
thanks to our Lord God, God of England ! for verily He 
hath showed Himself God of England, or rather an 
English God, if we consider and ponder well all His pro- 
ceedings with us from time to time. He hath overcome 
all our illness with His exceeding goodness ; so that we 
are now more than’ [ever ?] ‘compelled to serve Him, 
seek His glory, promote His Word, if the devil of all 
devils be not in us. We have now the stop of vain trusts, 
and the stay of vain expectations ; let us all pray for his 
preservation ; and I for my part will wish that His Grace 
always have, and even now from the beginning, governors, — 
instructors, and officers, of right judgments, ne optimum 
ingenium non optima educatione depravetur’ [that an excel- 
lent natural disposition be not spoiled by bad training]. 
‘But what a great fool am I’ [to be thinking of the — 
education of an infant seven days old]: ‘so, what devotion 
showeth many times but little discretion. And thus the 
God of England be ever with you in all your proceedings ! 

‘The 19th of October, now at Hartlebury. 

‘If you would excite this bearer’ [Master Evans, one 
of the ecclesiastical commissioners] ‘to be more hearty 
against the abuse of imagery’ [images], ‘and more for- 
ward to promote the verity, it might do good ; not that it 
came of me, but of yourself, etc.’* 


Latimer, it will be seen from this letter, had returned 
again to Hartlebury, his visitation being perhaps con- 
cluded, and, as we learn from himself, his feeble frame 
being exhausted by his labours. He was not, however, 


* State Paper Office: printed in State Papers, i. 571. 


Death of Jane Seymour 277 


allowed any long repose. Jane Seymour, the best beloved 
of all Henry’s queens, had only survived the birth of her 
son twelve days. She died on October 24, and on the 
8th, or some say the 12th of November following, her 
body was conveyed ‘ with great solemnity from Hampton 
Court to Windsor, and there buried in the midst of the 
quire.’* ‘At the same time,’ says the chronicler, ‘was 
made in Paul’s a solemn herse for her, where was a mass 
and dirige ; and in like manner was sung a mass and 
dirige in every parish church in London.’ ? 

It was probably in connection with these funeral 
solemnities that Latimer, fatigued and in ill-health, was 
summoned to London. At all events he was in London 
at the commencement of November, and was appointed 
to preach on the 13th, the day following the Queen’s 
funeral ; and it seems highly improbable that anything of 
less importance would have induced him to leave Hartle- 
bury, especially when his health was so precarious. Of 
course he had also business to transact with Cromwell ; 
and his letter to the all-important Lord Privy Seal 
throws an interesting light upon his movements at the 
time. 


‘RiGHT HONOURABLE,—When I was with your lordship 
last’? [some months ago], ‘you were desirous to know 
where you might have good monks. I told you of two 
with my lord’ [abbot] ‘of Westminster ; I could not then 
name them to you, but now I can: the one is called 
Gorton, the other Clarke ; both bachelors of divinity, well 
learned, of right judgment, of very honest name. The 
Prior of Coventry, as I hear say, is dead. The matter’ 
[of appointing a successor] ‘is somewhat entered with 
the King’s grace, and like to go forward, if you put 
thereto your helping hand. I doubt not but my brother 


* Stowe : Grafton and Hall say she was buried on the 8th ; Stowe 
delays the funeral till the 12th. ? Grafton, 


278 Latimer’s Episcopate 


Abbot of Westminster, as ill as he might spare them, yet 
will forego them for such a purpose ; but much the rather 


if he perceive your pleasure therein. 
‘I would have waited upon your lordship myself, as 


my duty had been; but surely, Sir, I do what I can to — 


enable myself to std in the pili on Tuesday’ [to 
preach a funeral sermon on Queen Jane]. ‘I am ina 
faint weariness over all my body, but chiefly in the small 
of my back; but I have a good nurse, good Mistress 
Statham, which, seeing what case I was in, hath fetched 
me home to her own house, and doth pymper me up with 
all diligence : for I fear a consumption. But it maketh 


little matter for me. I pray God preserve your lordship 


long in health to all such good purposes as God hath 
ordained you to! In Master Statham’s house. 8th of 
November’ [1537]." 


The good Mistress Statham who thus so kindly tended 


Latimer in his illness, was of course an admiring follower, 
who had often heard him preach in London. She 
resided in ‘ Milk Street in the Parish of St. Mary Magdalen,” 
and was well known to Cranmer as well as to Latimer. 
Her kindness was not forgotten by the two prelates, who 
recommended her to the patronage of Cromwell; nor 
was it forgotten by the Romish party when they came 
into power, for her name appears among those who were 
brought into trouble in the reign of Mary. 

Before leaving London on this occasion, Latimer 
probably paid a last farewell visit to his old friend Hum- 
phrey Monmouth, alderman and draper, who had long 
favoured the doctrines of the Reformers, and had even 
been imprisoned for assisting Tindale. The worthy 


alderman was drawing near his end, and while Latimer — 
was in London, on November 16, he made his last will © 


and testament, bequeathing among other legacies £20 for 


* Cotton MSS., Cleopatra, E. iv. 139. 
2 Foxe, vol. v. p. 444. Cranmer’s Remains, p. 575. 


Latimer’s Influence 279 


thirty sermons, to be preached in his parish church of 
All-Hallows, Barking, by the four great Reforming 
preachers of the day, Latimer, Crome, Barnes, and Taylor 
(rector of St. Peter’s, Cornhill). 

This appointment of Latimer to preach was not a mere 
tribute of private friendship ; Latimer had become the 
recognised exponent of the views of the great majority of 
the English Reformers. His sermons had awakened a 
response from many hearts ; the straightforward practical 
character of his oratory being exactly that which was 
best adapted to impress the national mind. The student 
who prosecutes his researches into the history of the 
period among the manuscripts of the British Museum or 
the State Paper Office, meets everywhere proofs of the 
wide extent to which Latimer influenced public opinion. 
His name was in every one’s mouth ; and his doctrines 
were everywhere the theme of discussion. Thus, for 
example, a countryman brought before the justices on the 
charge of neglecting some ecclesiastical ordinance, main- 
tained that he had heard ‘Latimer and Crome preach 
that we should trust only in God’s Word, and that we 
should not honour any saints, nor trust in any ceremonies 
of the Church ;’ he had been told also ‘that Dr. Barnes is 
likewise of the same mind.’ The Vicar of Croydon, 
having been examined before Cranmer upon certain 
opinions which he had preached, was asked among other 
questions ‘whom he knoweth that doth exclude all bodily 
observance as frivol and vain, all ceremonies of religion, 
and all vocal prayer, calling it lip-labour.’ He answered, 
‘The Bishop of Worcester and Dr. Crome have so done, 
for it followeth of their words.’3 The vicar was unduly 
straining Latimer’s words in drawing such an inference 
from them ; but at all events they had clearly madea deep 


* The will is in Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. i. part ii. 
2 Cotton MSS., Cleopatra, E. v. 308. 
3 Cranmer’s Remains, Pp. 339, from the State Paper Office. 


280 Latimer’s Episcopate 


impression on his mind. Such intimations as these might — 


be indefinitely multiplied ; they occur in the most unex- 
pected places, and prove that his teaching had sunk deep 
into the heart of the nation.? 

Barnes, we have seen, was nominated along with Lati- 
mer as one of the preachers appointed in Monmouth’s 
will; and he also was one of those whose influence was 
most widely felt in forming public opinion. His exile in 
Germany, and his intercourse with the German Reformers, 
had made him well acquainted with the theology of the 
Continental Protestants, and had apparently somewhat 
sobered down his former rashness. Latimer had always 
entertained a high opinion of the ability of Barnes, and on 
his return to Hartlebury, after this hurried visit to London, 
he took Barnes with him, that his energy and eloquence 
might assist in reforming some of ‘the blind ends of his 
diocese.’ Barnes remained with Latimer a few weeks, 
preaching with singular power ; for in ‘handling a piece 
of Scripture and in setting forth of Christ’ he had no 
equal ; so at least Latimer thought, and he longed that 
Henry might be persuaded to hear him. The Christmas 
of 1537 Barnes spent with Latimer at Hartlebury, in the 
festive hospitality of that ancient episcopal abode ; and we 
may be sure that there were not wanting many reminis- 
cences of that stormy Christmas of twelve years before, 
when Barnes’s inflammatory discourse had excited such a 
commotion in Cambridge. Times had changed much for 
the better since that exposition in the University. The 
Cardinal was gone, and the Pope’s authority was gone; 
men were no longer liable to be burned for reading the 
Scriptures in English ; and Latimer, then known only as a 
suspected heretic whom all men avoided, was now sitting 
at ease in his palace, high in office in the Church, high in 
favour with the Sovereign. The Reformation might seem 


* There are many such proofs of Latimer’s influence in the Chapier 
House Papers in the State Paper Office. 


Commending Good Men 281 


to move slowly to one who marked its progress day by 
day : but one who compared the ecclesiastical position of 
periods twelve years apart, would be startled with the 
greatness of the changes that had been effected in so brief 
a space. 

Latimer’s correspondence with Cromwell still continues 
to throw light upon his proceedings, and is therefore 
welcome to all readers. Almost immediately on his 
return to Hartlebury, as we conjecture, he wrote the 
following :— 


‘Sir,—I am so malapert, seeing that your goodness 
towards me maketh me bold, I should have remembered 
your lordship of Gorton and Clarke, the two monks of 
Westminster, as concerning Coventry’ [the vacant prior- 
ship of the monastery there], ‘ but I had forgotten it ; and 
nevertheless I trust it needeth not. 

“As for Master Haynes’ [President of Queen’s College], 
‘he thinketh to keep the Wednesday himself’ [probably 
the preaching on Wednesday in the coming Lent], ‘so 
that I shall not need to advertise my brother prior of that’ 
[Holbeach, Prior of Worcester] ; ‘but I would be glad 
that he had a Sunday, to the intent that the King’s grace 
might taste what he can do, if it were so seen to your good 
lordship ; and then I would know what Sunday. 

‘This bearer, Master Acton’ [of Sutton, in Worcester- 
shire, married to the daughter of Humphrey Monmouth’s 
brother], ‘my godsib* and friend, hath something to say 
to your lordship. He is faithful and hearty in all good 
causeés, no man more ready to serve God and the King, and 
your lordship’s hearty lover to his power. I commit both 
him and his cause to your accustomable goodness, and you 
and yours to God’s goodness. 

‘There is one Anthony Throgmorton, servant, as they 


* z.e., relation in God ; persons who had stood as God-parents for the 
same child were called godsibs, or gossips. 


282 Latimer’s Episcopate 


say, to Master Pole, cardinal: if he be the King’s true © 
subject’ [which he was not, but a double-distilled traitor, — 
who, volunteering to Cromwell to serve as a spy on Pole, © 
in reality betrayed Cromwell to Pole], ‘well and taill; if — 
not, I would Master Robert Acton’ [son of the former 
Acton], ‘the King’s true and faithful subject and servant, 
had his thing’ [Throgmorton’s property], ‘at Wynche, 
for it lieth very commodiously for him ; and then, as he is 
always willing, so he should be more able to do his grace 
service. Thus I run riot, but presuming of your goodness. 

‘If Friar Gaulyne have suffered condignly for his mis- — 
behaviour, I doubt not but when you see your time, you — 
will extend your charity unto him, with some injunctions — 
to do better.’ * 


On Christmas Day, Latimer is again writing to Crom- — 
well, almost ashamed of his importunity. | 


‘Alack, my singular good lord, saving that I have ex- 
perience of your benign goodness, that you can be omnia 
omnibus’ [all things to all men], ‘to do all men good, I~ 
might be irk of my own importunity. As for this letter 
inclosed’ [now lost], ‘it shall speak for itself, and be heard — 
as God shall work with your ready goodness. When I 
moved the King’s grace in the matter, his highness did — 
favourably hear me, etc. 

‘As for the Coventry matter’ [appointment of new 
prior], ‘ Master Acton and Master Nevell’s matters, and all 
other my further suits, I commit to your approved wisdom, 
high discretion, and ee Se goodness. ; 

‘Mr. Doctor Barnes hath preached here with me at 
Hartlebury, and at my request at Worcester,? and also at 
Evesham, Surely he is alone in handling a piece of Scrip- — 


t State Paper Office. j 
2 In Latimer’s Remains this is erroneously deciphered Winchester, — 
the last place in England where Barnes would have been permitted to — 
preach. , 


ae DE 
" 


A Busy Year 283 


ture, and in setting forth of Christ he hath no fellow. I 
would wish that the King’s grace might once hear him. 
But I pray you let him tell you how two monks hath 
preached alate in Evesham; I trust you will hearken to 
them and look upon them ; for though they be exempt 
from me, yet they be not exempt from your lordship. I 
pray God amend them, or else I fear they be exempt from 
the flock of Christ ; very true monks, that is to say, pseudo- 
prophets and false Christian men, perverters of Scripture ; 
sly, wily, disobedientiaries to all good orders ; ever starting 
up, as they dare, to do hurt. 
‘This Christmas-day’ [1537]. 


The year 1538 was one of the busiest of Latimer’s epis- 
copal life, and one of the most eventful in the history of 
the English Reformation. That great movement still 
continued, though slowly, to advance. This very year it 
reached the highest point that it ever attained under 
Henry’s rule; and unhappily, before the year closed, 
there were plain traces of the commencement of a re- 
action, which for a time restored to the adherents of the 
Romish faith something of their former power. Latimer 
was one of the first and most prominent sufferers by this 
change of policy; and it will be necessary, in order to 
understand the progress of that movement which drove 
him from his bishopric, to observe with care the political 
and ecclesiastical proceedings of the period. 

The death of his third Queen, Jane Seymour, plunged 
Henry for a time into the deepest grief. In a few weeks, 
however, he was again engaged in negotiations for a fourth 
wife, and the minds of English statesmen were again 
racked with perplexities. On former occasions, Henry’s 
affections had been fixed, he wanted merely to procure 
the means of gratifying them. Now he was left in a state 
of embarrassment unprecedented in his experience. No 
domestic beauty had captivated his fancy; his heart was 


284 Latimer’s Episcopate 


free ; and he knew not where to look for a suitable part- 


ner to share the somewhat perilous honours of his throne, — 


In any circumstances the choice of a Queen is a matter of 
importance to a nation ; but in the peculiar circumstances 
of England, the choice had become a matter almost of 
supreme consequence. If Henry should ally himself with 
any of the great Catholic royal families of the Continent, 
it was not improbable that the onward progress of the 
Reformation might be checked, and that much that had 
been already accomplished might be undone. If, on the 
other hand, a Queen should be found at the courts of any 
of the German Protestant Princes, then it might be reason- 
ably hoped that, under her auspices, what was still wanting 
in the English Reformation might be completed. The 
rival parties, therefore, watched with eager anxiety the 
progress of the matrimonial negotiations, doing what they 
could to influence the King in a choice which must more 
or less affect their deepest interests. 

At first, mainly from the force of old habit, and a certain 
proud disregard of the petty German Confederates, Henry 


sought a Queen at the courts of France and Spain. Mary — 


of Guise, and the Duchess of Milan, were successively 
solicited, but ineffectually ; and after a year of fruitless 
negotiations, in which Henry was not always very honestly 
treated by monarchs who somewhat distrusted him, he 
had still to find some worthy successor to Jane Seymour, 
Cromwell had not as yet ventured to suggest to his royal 
master any fair candidate for his throne and affections. 
But he and Cranmer were labouring assiduously to estab- 
lish a firm alliance between England and the German 
Protestants. It was the dearest wish of Cranmer’s heart 
to unite all the Reformed Churches ‘in one sound, pure, 
evangelical doctrine, conformable to the discipline of the 
primitive Church: It was a noble and pious ambition 
worthy of the gentle, large-hearted primate, whose purse 


* Letter to Joachim Vadian, 1537 ; Zurich Letters, p. 14, 


Protestant Unity Sought 285 


and whose palace were ever open to any man of learning 
and piety, from whatever nation he came; and it was no 
temporary piece of political expediency, but a cherished, 
deep-rooted purpose faithfully prosecuted whenever any 
favourable opportunity presented itself. Cromwell too 
was equally anxious to promote this league of all the 
Reformed Churches of Europe, as a necessary measure 
of defence against the oft-threatened danger of an uni- 
versal coalition of the Catholic princes ina crusade against 
Protestantism. For the German Protestants it was clearly 
a matter of the highest moment to secure the patronage 
and co-operation of so powerful a monarchas Henry ; and 
it was not unreasonable, considering the character of 
English policy for the last eight years, to hope that Henry 
would consent to join their league. 

Accordingly, in May, Commissioners arrived from the 
German confederated princes, bringing with them a letter 
from Melanchthon, entreating Henry to aid the Church 
which was exposed to so many dangers, by establishing a 
firm and enduring league.t Long conferences ensued, 
lasting over several months ; articles were drawn up to 
serve, it was hoped, as the common creed of both 
Churches. Cranmer laboured most assiduously to pro- 
mote unity ; but there were some differences of opinion 
which could not be harmonised. Henry, who was always 
great in theological controversies, and had shared in the 
discussions with an ability that commanded the respect of 
both parties, could not be persuaded to relinquish his 
adherence to some practices which the German Commis- 
sioners censured as the very foundation of Popish tyranny.? 
The three great points on which Henry would not give 
way were the denying of the cup to the laity, private 
masses, and the celibacy of the clergy. The Commis- 


* See his letter in Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. i. pt. ii. 384, from the 
Cotton MSS. 
_ 7 Their letter on the subject, preserved in the Cotton MSS., is printed 
in full in Burnet, vol, iv. p. 352, ete, 


286 Latimer’s Episcopate — 


sioners addressed an elaborate letter on these subjects to’ 
Henry, to which he, through Tunstal, made as elaborate a 
reply, but without any satisfactory result.t The negotia- 
tions proved abortive, and the Commissioners returned to 
Germany without accomplishing their purpose. a 

There can be no doubt that the failure of this attempt 
to form a great Protestant alliance was for the time disas- 
trous to the Reformation in England. Henry perhaps felt 
piqued that the Commissioners had not shown more 
deference to his arguments; he probably expected that 
they would have sacrificed their opinions to his, instead of © 
asking him to make concessions to them ; and the Romish 
party in England who had hitherto conformed to the 
royal policy, began to circulate rumours that Henry had 
altogether abandoned his old faith, so that his cherished 
reputation for orthodoxy seemed to be at stake, and he 
was thereby more than ever confirmed in his own 
opinions. 

We left Latimer keeping his Christmas at Hartlebury, — 
his old friend Barnes, and probably some other old friends, ~ 
sharing his hospitality. He remained some few weeks 
longer, we suppose, at his country residence, reposing 
after his recent labours, and recovering, it may be hoped, 
from the pain in his back and the ‘threatened consump- 
tion ;’ and towards the end of February he again repaired © 
to London, possibly to discharge his duty in rotation as 
one of the preachers at Paul’s Cross or the Court. Perhaps, 
also, he had been summoned to assist with his powerful | 
eloquence the great practical Reformation which Cromwell — 
was actively promoting. 

There was no abuse which Latimer had so frequently or © 
so eloquently denounced as the pilgrimages to relics and — 
images ; and much had already been done to free England 
from that wretched superstition. The injunctions issued 
by Cromwell in 1536 had expressly ordered that, ‘to the 


* This also is printed in Burnet, vol. iv. p. 373, etc. 


Crusade Against Images 287 


intent that all superstition and hypocrisy may vanish away, 
the clergy shall not set forth or extol any images, relics, or 
miracles, for any superstition or lucre; nor allure the 
people by any enticements to the pilgrimages of any saint, 
as though it were proper or peculiar to that saint to give 
this commodity or that.’ But in spite of injunctions these 
practices still continued. It was difficult to disabuse the 
minds of the ignorant of prejudices which they had 
inherited from their ancestors; and the priests were 
equally unwilling to abandon a custom which was a fertile ~ 
source of revenue. 

It was resolved therefore to bring the most famous 
images into discredit, by exhibiting to the eyes of the 
populace the wires and concealed machinery by which the 
priests had caused the images to wink, nod, and shed tears, 
to the astonishment and edification of the worshippers. 
Every county in England had its local deity, some image 
reputed to possess miraculous powers, the kissing or 
reverencing of which (always after an offering) was 
deemed a specific for various diseases ; and their shrines 
were crowded with worshippers. No image was in higher 
repute in the South of England than the ‘ Rood of Bexley,’ 
in Kent. It rolled its eyes, bowed its body, knitted its fore- 
head into a frown, and dropped its lower lip, as if to 
speak ; or in the rude verse of an enthusiastic Protestant 
of the period :— 


‘He was made to juggle, 
His eyes would goggle, 
He would bend his brows and frown 
With his head he would nod 
Like a proper young god 
His chafts (jaws) would go up and down.’ 


Geoffrey Chambers, one of Cromwell’s visitors, detected 
the mechanism by which these tricks were performed ; 
* The Fantasy of Idolatrie, Foxe, vol. v. The ballad was made by 


one of the ‘divers fresh and quick wits’ whom Cromwell entertained 
in his family ; see Foxe, vol. v. p. 403. Maitland is very indignant. 


288 Latimer’s Episcopate . 


and by the advice of some friends he took the wonder- 


working image to Maidstone on the market-day, and there, 


before the congregated crowds, he exhibited the ‘ false, 


crafty, and subtle handling thereof to the dishonour of — 


God, and illusion of the people.’ * 
It was determined, however, to make a more public 


exhibition of the fraud ; and, after the fashion of those 


days, a somewhat scenic performance was arranged for 
Sunday, February 24, in which Latimer bore a conspicuous 
part, and of which we fortunately possess an account from 
an eye-witness. 


‘The images which used to work miracles by the 


artifices of the devil and his angels, that is to say, the — 
monks, friars, fish-eaters, and others of that stamp’ [for — 


our informant was very indignant at the imposture] ‘ were 


conveyed on horseback to London, at the command of the — 


bishops. A public sermon was preached from the pulpit — 
of St. Paul’s’ [rather Paul’s Cross] ‘to the congregation — 
assembled in Christ ; after which a certain image, brought — 


away from Kent, called ‘the Rood of Grace,” was first 
exhibited. The preacher, the Bishop of Rochester’ 


[Hilsey, once of Bristol], ‘explained all the trickery and 
imposture in the presence of the people. By means of — 


some person pulling a cord, most artfully contrived and 


ingeniously inserted at the back, the image rolled about its — 


eyes just like a living creature ; and on the pulling of other 


cords, it gave a nod of assent or dissent according to the ~ 


occasion. It never restored health to any sick person, 
notwithstanding great numbers afflicted with divers 
diseases were carried to it, and laid prostrate before it, 


unless some one disguised himself of set purpose, and pre- — 


tended to be sick ; in which case it would give a nod, as 
though promising the restoration of health, that it might 
by this means confirm its imposture. Then again, by 


t Letter of Chambers to Cromwell, in Froude, vol, iii. p. 288, from 
the State Paper Office. 


ee 


The Rood of Ramsbury 289 


some other contrivance, unknown to me, it opened and 
shut its mouth ; and to make an end of my story at once, 
after all its tricks had been exposed to the people, it was 
broken into small pieces, and it was a great delight to any 
one who could obtain a single fragment, either, as I 
suppose, to put in the fire in their own houses, or else to 
keep by them by way of reproof to such kind of impostors. 

‘After this, Bishop Latimer, in the western part of St. 
Paul’s, carried a small image in his hand, which he threw 
out of the church, though the inhabitants of the country 
whence it came, constantly affirmed that eight oxen would 
be unable to remove it from its place.’ * 

This wonderful image was no other than the ‘ Rood of 
Ramsbury,’ in Wiltshire, of which the author of the Fantasy 
of Idolatry has thus sung :— 

‘The sweet rood of Ramsbury, 
Twenty mile from Malmesbury 

Was ofttimes put in fear ; 
And now at the last, 


He had a bridling cast, 
And is gone I know not where. 


Yet hath it been said, 
His virtue so weighed, 
That sixteen oxen and moe, 
Were not able to carry 
This rood from Ramsbury, 
Though he took seven horses also.’ 


The proceedings thus inaugurated in London were imitated 
all over England, especially in those dioceses where the 
bishops favoured the Reformation. Much of Latimer’s 
time, as we shall see, was occupied during the summer, 
with examining and exploding miraculous relics ; and in 
the dioceses where the bishops were inclined to hang 
back from any active steps, their flagging zeal was 
stimulated to increased diligence by a new issue of more 
peremptory injunctions, which shall come under our notice 
in due order. 
* Zurich Letters, p. 606; see also pp. 604, 609. 
£9 


290 Latimer’s Episcopate 


One result of Latimer’s visitation of his diocese had been | 
to make it quite plain to him, that the proper discharge of 
his duties as a Reforming bishop was far beyond his 
strength. For ages too many of the bishops had thought 3 
less of duties than of pleasure and magnificence; and the — 
. size of their dioceses had occasioned them very little — 
anxiety. With the Reformation a higher sense of duty — 
had begun to prevail, and the unwieldy extent of many 
of the dioceses, rendering any proper performance of © 
episcopal duties utterly impracticable even for the most — 
energetic prelate, attracted the attention of Parliament. j 
In the session of 1536, regulations had been enacted for ; 
providing suffragans to assist the bishops in their duties. ; 
Latimer’s diocese, including, as has already been noticed, — 
what were Siisenncury. the three dioceses of Worsestem j 
Gloucester, and Bristol, was much too large to be effectually 
overseen by one ae and he wished to secure the co- | 
operation of a suffragan. 

On March 2, accordingly, in compliance with the terms. , 
of the statute, ‘our well-beloved and faithful counsellor, — 
Hugh, by pane providence, Bishop of Worcester, pre- 
sented to the King, two honest and discreet clergymen, of 
learned and good conversation, for the office of suffragan” 
Bishop of Bristol.’* Of the two thus presented, the King 
selected Henry Holbeach, already known to us, having 
been appointed Prior of Worcester Abbey, on the strong — 
recommendation of Cranmer; an office which he had — 
evidently discharged to Latimer’s satisfaction. No time — 
was lost in consecrating Holbeach to his new office; on — 
_ Sunday, March 24, he was duly consecrated by Cranmer, © 
at Pambeth,* Latimer being present as one of the ie 


> 


Latimer’s diocese, whose fierce theological disputes had s sO ne 
* The original is in Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 586. 
2 Strype’s’ Cranmer, trom Cranmer's Register. 


A Faithful Helper agi 


lately called for the intervention of royal authority, and 
were not even yet allayed. 

Latimer, indeed, it would appear, stood urgently in need 
of assistance in his duties ; for his health, never robust, 
and lately so much enfeebled, seems this spring to have 
been again in a very precarious state. Fortunately he was 
again residing at the house of his faithful nurse, and with 
good Mrs. Statham, to watch over him, and ‘ pymper’ him 
with loving assiduity, nothing would be wanting that kind- 
ncss and care could supply. It was during this illness, in 
April, 1538, as we conjecture, that the following letter was 
addressed to Cromwell :— 


‘RIGHT HONOURABLE, Saluiem’ [greeting]. ‘ This bearer, 
Mr. Butler of Droitwich, one of the Commissioners’ [for 
ascertaining the value of livings], ‘hath to certify your 
lordship of the misbehaviour of a certain priest in the 
commotion time,’ [ Pilgrimage of Grace ; said misbehaviour 
is too shocking to be here related at length, but may be 
seen by the curious, in Latimer’s Letters, p. 391.] ‘O 
unholy and also unchaste chastity’ [celibacy of clergy], 
‘which is preferred in a Christian realm to chaste and holy 
matrimony. 

‘I pray you, my good lord, pardon me that I do write 
unto you so unadvisedly, for I am light-headed for lack of 
sleep ; not that I can sleep and will not, but that I would 
sleep and cannot ; but all as doth please Almighty God, to 
whom I commit your good lordship, but too I cannot 
forget my nurse, to bring her to your good remembrance, 
with all opportunity, et Nevellus presens suspirat benignitatem 
tuam’ [and Nevell, my servant, who is here with me, also 
hopes for your favour]. 

It is not impossible that Latimer’s sleeplessness arose 
from mental excitement as much as from bodily weakness. 


* Latimer’s Remains, p. 390, from State Paper Office : undated, but 
almost certainly belonging to the spring of 1538. 


292 Latimer’s Episcopate 


He was again troubled with a renewal of the theological ; 
discussions that had so vexed and wearied him in theg % 
previous spring. The Institution, it will be remembered, 
had not been revised by Henry from want of time; but — 
the seclusion of his bereavement had apparently afforded f 
him leisure to oversee and correct it: Henry’s corrections — 
were submitted for animadversion to Cranmer? ; an 
Latimer was doubtless asked by the primate to give his 
opinion on the controverted points, much to his distress. 
Sundry theological discussions and resolutions seem also — 
to have occupied these early months of 1538,2 in which — 
Latimer shared, and by which he was much agitated and — 
perplexed. 
In the beginning of April, also, he was involved in an 
unpleasant trial, affecting the life of the person accused, 
and therefore not unlikely to produce sleeplessness in any 
man of humane feelings. The friars, repressed for some 
time by the utter failure of the Northern rebellion, were 
again venting their treasonable insinuations, and attempt-— 
ing to excite the people to sedition. Among others, an — 
Observant friar, John Forest by name, was apprehended ~ 
and brought before Cranmer and Latimer for examination.3 - 
He had, it seemed, abused the confessional by teaching 
treason to his penitents ; denying the lawfulness of Henry’s 
assumption of the title of ‘Supreme Head of the Church 
in England.’ When examined, he admitted that he had, 
like all other Englishmen, taken the oath acknowledging 
Henry’s supremacy ; ‘ but,’ said he boldly, ‘it was only 
my outward man that gave assent, my inward man never 
consented thereunto.’ It was also proven that he ha@ 
taught various heresies, condemned by Convocation, and 
contrary to royal injunctions. : 


t See Cranmer’s Letters, pp. 358, 359, etc. 
2 There is, for example, a paper on The Functions of Bishops, signed 
by Latimer, which is certainly not of later date than April, 1538, pro- 
bably not of much earlier. Burnet, vol. iv. p. 336, from Cotton MSS. 
3 Cranmer’s Letters, p. 365. 


The Case of Forest 293 


The law was plain, and the fate of the poor friar was 
inevitable, unless he could be induced to abjure. Cranmer’s 
clemency was proverbial; Latimer was by no means 
bloodthirsty ; nay, had he not in his noble letter to Henry 
maintained that persecution was a ‘sure mark of true 
preaching’ and advocated liberty of opinion? Every 
effort, therefore, would be made to induce Forest to retract 
and submit to the censure of the Church ; and greatly to 
the comfort of Latimer and Cranmer, he abjured and sub- 
mitted, and was confined in Newgate till the royal pleasure 
could be ascertained. 

Unhappily his brother friars were allowed too ready 
access to him ; they upbraided him with his cowardice 
and apostasy, and when his formal abjuration was sent to 
him to read he utterly refused, and resolutely stood by the 
heresy and treason that had been charged against him. 
There was no alternative ; Forest was, by law, guilty as a 
heretic and a traitor; he had recanted his recantation ; 
and however reluctantly, the sentence must be pronounced 
and executed. This did not fill up the cup of Latimer’s 
distress ; it was the custom of the time that some one 
should preach at an execution of this sort, to confute the 
errors of the sufferer, and, if possible, induce him to repent. 
For this most ungrateful task Latimer was selected by 
Cromwell. To any one of ordinary tenderness of heart, 
the duty must have been a revolting one ; and Latimer 
was anxious if possible to get quit of it, anxious also that 
mercy might somehow be extended even yet to Forest, as 
the following letter very plainly shows :— 


‘Sir, if it be your pleasure, as it is, that I shall play the 
fool after my customable manner when Forest shall suffer, I 
would wish that my stage stood near unto Forest; for I 
would endeavour myself so to content the people that 
therewith I might also convert Forest, God so helping, or 
rather altogether working; wherefore I would that He 


294 Latimer’s Episcopate 


should hear what I shall say, si forle, etc.’ [if perchance he 
may repent.] ‘Forest, as I hear, is not duly accompanied’ 
amendment, with the White Friars of Doncaster, and — 
Monks of the Charter House, in a fit chamber, more like — 


[has not very good companions] ‘in Newgate for his 


a 


to indurate than to mollify ; whether through the fault of 4 


the sheriff or of the jailer, or both, no man could sooner 
discern than your lordship. Some think he is rather 
comforted in his way than discouraged; some think 
he is allowed both to hear mass and also to receive 
the sacrament ; which if it be so, it is enough to confirm 
him in his obstinacy, as though he were to suffer fora just 
cause. These things would’ [should] ‘be tried, ut rete- 
gantur ex multis cordibus cogitationes’ [that the thoughts of 
many hearts may be revealed]. ‘It is to be feared that 
some instilled into him, that though he had persevered in 


his abjuration, yet he should have suffered afterward for 
treason; and so by that occasion he might have been — 


induced to refuse his abjuration. If he would yet with 
heart return to his abjuration, I would wish his pardon ; 
such is my foolishness’ [foolish weakness]. 


‘I thank your good lordship for Gloucester’ [some 


benefit to that city], ‘desiring the continuance of your 
goodness to Master Nevell’ [of whom and his suit we 
shall hear more anon] : ‘ for I doubt not but that you will 


of yourself remember my nurse. Thus I cannot but be bold ~ 


with your lordship. ; 
‘It were good you would sometimes send for masters of 


colleges in Cambridge and Oxford with their statutes ; and — 
if the statutes be not good and to the furtherance of good — 
letters, change them; if the masters be not good, but 
honourers of drawlatches, change them. May 18, © 


1538.’ ? 


In this letter Sir Henry Ellis, who regards Latimer as ; 


* State Paper Office : Latimer’s Remains, p. 391 


Execution of Forest 205 


a coarse buffoon, just as some historians have considered 
Cromwell a hypocritical ruffian, sees, of course, a confir- 
mation of his curious theory; but readers, who have 
followed Latimer’s career and know him better, will gather 
from it that he ‘reluctantly accepted the ungrateful 
service, * and that he would willingly have welcomed 
any means of rescuing the unhappy man from his 
fate. 

Forest and Cromwell both proving steadfast, Latimer 
was compelled to perform his part in the tragic scene. 
And a strange, dreadful scene it was, as we catch a glimpse 
of it in the pages of the contemporary chronicles. On 
May 22, a pair of new gallows was set up in Smithfield, 
whereon Forest was hanged alive by the middle and arm- 
pits. 

‘Opposite the gallows there was prepared,’ says Hall,? 
‘a pulpit where a right reverend father in God, and a 
renowned and famous clerk, the Bishop of. Worcester, 
called Hugh Latimer, preached a sermon, confuting 
Forest’s errors and moving him to repentance. But all 
availed not, so that in the end, when the Bishop asked 
him what state he would die in, the friar with a loud voice 
answered and said that if an angel should come down 
from heaven, and teach him any other doctrine than he 
had received and believed from his youth, he would not 
believe him, and that if his body should be cut joint after 
joint, or member after member burnt, hanged, or what 
pain soever might be done to his body, he would never 
turn from his old profession ; more, he said to the Bishop, 
that seven years past he dared not have made such a 
sermon for his life.’ 

The sermon over, and no signs of penitence being 
visible, the civic authorities, who were present in great 


® Froude, vol. iii. p. 295. 
? Hall’s Chronicle ; the narrative is also supplemented from Grafton 
and other sources. 


296 Latimer’s Episcopate 


state, proceeded to the more terrible part of the day’s pro- 
ceedings. Beneath the unhappy friar a fire was kindled, 
and on the top of the fagots was placed a famous image 
brought from Wales, known to the common people as 
Dderfel Gadern, reputed to have power to take any one 
out of hell that offered before it,t and of which an ancient 
tradition affirmed that one day it should burn a whole forest. 
The ancient tradition was now to receive a horrible 
and quite unexpected fulfilment. The poor man was 


slowly burned to death: ‘he died impatiently,’ says — 


Grafton, ‘seizing the ladder:’ but it is enough; the 


reader will gladly turn from the scene, sad and sick at : 


heart, as Latimer no doubt was, to welcome other matters. 

Latimer seems to have left London almost immediately 
after for Hartlebury, to superintend the burning of images, 
a more congenial task than the burning of heretics. But 


before accompanying him to his diocese two occurrences — 


in London are worthy to be noted. On May 8, while the 
trial of Forest was pending, Fox, the Bishop of Hereford, 


died, a great friend of the Reformation, a prelate of much ~ 


learning and of the highest character. His removal was 
a great loss to the Protestant party ; and Cranmer and 
Cromwell were egregiously deceived in the successor 
whom they appointed, who was no other than Edmund 
Bonner, hitherto distinguished as a zealous Reformer, but 
destined to develop into the Bloody Bonner of Queen 
Mary’s reign. The German Commissioners also, who had 
arrived in May, and had brought with them copies of 
Bullinger’s learned works on The Authority of Holy Scrip- 
tures, and The Duties of Bishops, presented Latimer, amongst 
others, with these books. It wasa tributeto his reputation ; 


t ‘David Darvel Gatheren 
As saith the Welshmen 
Fetched outlaws out of hell,’ etc.—Fantasy of Idolatry. 
‘When a Welshman would have a journey, he prayed to Darvel 
Gatherne.’ Michael Woode’s Dialogues belween Two Neighbours, 
quoted by Sir H. Ellis. 3rd Series, iv. 196. 


Letters to Cromwell 297 


and thoughhe had not yet devoted much time to the study 
of the theology of the Continental Reformers, he was 
exceedingly gratified with the compliment paid him; 
‘nothing in the whole course of his life had ever been 
more gratifying to him,’ and he hoped soon to have leisure 
for the careful perusal of the valuable volumes. He pro- 
mised to write to Bullinger and thank him for his kindness ; 
but if he ever wrote, his letter has not been preserved." 

Leaving London, therefore, after three months of 
sickness and anxiety, Latimer was at Hartlebury in the 
commencement of June, busy in the many affairs of his 
diocese, and especially active in exposing the many impos- 
tures connected with the miraculous images that abounded 
on all sides. Of his proceedings during the summer and 
autumn months, we have a copious account in his corre- 
spondence with Cromwell, which was prosecuted with 
greater activity than ever. The biographer cannot, there- 
fore, do better than insert in their order the letters to 
Cromwell, with such brief note or commentary as 
occasion may require. 

In the first letter, Latimer writes partly on his own 
affairs, and one is glad to see with greatly recovered 
spirits. 


‘Sir, I was minded to have been a suitor to your 
lordship, seeing I cannot attain to the use of my park at 
Allchurch, for my preferment to some good part of the 
demesne of Berslay, for my money, which is even at 
hand, to relief of my great need to such things. For I 
trow no man, having the name of so many things, hath the 
use of so few as I, handled indeed likea ward. But now, 


* Zurich Letters, p. 612. 

= Ee following, says Leland, were the lands of the Bishop of 
Worcester: the Palace at Worcester ; Hartlebury Castle ; Allchurch, 
two miles from Bordesley [Berslay] Abbey ; Northwick, two miles from 
Worcester ; Whitington; Hillingdon near Uxbridge ; and Strond 
Place in London, removed to make way for Somerset House, 


298 Latimer’s Episcopate q 


"hearing that this bearer, Mr. Evance’ [the bearer also of — 


the former letter on Prince Edward’s birth], ‘ hath beguilel 


and entered into the same suit beforehand with your 
lordship, and is put in comfort of the same to be furthered 
therein, as I perceive by a letter come to him alate, I leave 
my purpose to begin for myself, and wish good success to 


his beginning’ [which did not succeed, however] ; ‘very 


loth to hinder or let any man’s suit begun. And surely, 
sir, I suppose you shall bestow it right well upon him ; 
for I suppose him to be a witty and politic man, both 
active and expert in things to be done, and no less prompt 
and ready than many ways able to do you service in your 
affairs. Now, sir, the more you incline your goodness to 
further him in this his suit, the more able he shall be to 


do you service from time to time, as you shall call upon 


him. And though this you know to be true much better 
than I, without my relation, yet I trust you will not mislike 
nor ill-expound, but take in good part this my writing: 
forasmuch as I must needs, being desired, something 
write, though never so foolishly, after my accustomed 
manner. And you have been so good and have shewed 
your goodness so largely unto me, that many men doth 
think that my poor remembrance with a word or two 
unto your lordship, should further their causes with you. 
But yet methink you smile at one thing, that I, a man of 
so little policy, so little experience and activity, so little 
wit and wisdom, would take upon me to judge another 
man politic and expert, active, witty and wise. Well, sir, 


if I had done but only that’ [what], ‘made you to smile, — 
to the refreshing of your mind in the midst of your — 
matters’ [negotiations for royal marriages and Protestant — 
alliances], ‘I have not done nothing: and the rest I 
commit to your accustomable goodness, with the suit of — 


my nurse, which I am certain you will remember with all 
opportunity. 


‘ And Master Nevell, making himself sure of his suit’ [for — 


‘Our Great Sibyl’ 299 


some abbey-lands near Droitwich, which he did not get 
after all], ‘hath got the widow’ [had married a rich 
widow worth forty marks a year], ‘ trusting surely in your 
lordship’s goodness for the performance of the same, not 
without pledging of my poor honesty in the same behalf. 

‘TI trust your lordship will bestow our great Sibyl’ 
[image of our ‘ Lady of Worcester,’ held in high sanctity 
in the neighbourhood, of which presently], ‘to some good 
purpose, ui pereat memoria cum sonitu’ [that the memory 
of her may perish with some public outcry]. ‘She hath 
been the devil’s instrument to bring many, I fear, to 
eternal fire; now she herself, with her old sister of Wal- 
singham, her young sister of Ipswich, with their other two 
sisters of Doncaster and Penrise’ [all famous images, 
much venerated by pilgrims], ‘would make a jolly muster 
in Smithfield ; they would not be all day in burning. 

‘Thus God be with you and preserve you long to such 
good purpose that the living God may be duly known in 
His spirit and verity. 13 Junii, at Hartlebury.’ 2 


The great Sibyl, which Latimer here wishes to be con- 
signed to the flames, was a famous statue of the Virgin in 
Worcester Cathedral, held particularly sacred, and visited 
by crowds of worshippers. Its pretensions to reverence, 
however, were somewhat rudely dispelled a few weeks 
after the date of his letter. By Cromwell’s order the statue 
was stripped of the gaudy trappings in which the mistaken 
piety of the ignorant people had arrayed her ; and lo! it 
was no image of the Virgin at all, nor of any other female, 
but the statue of some long-deceased bishop of the 
diocese ! ] 

Superstition was thus laughed to scorn ; yet there were 
some who could not, even by this exposure, be convinced 
_ of their folly. On the eve of the feast of the Assumption 


* Letters on the Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 194. 
? State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, C. 3, 21. 


300 Latimer’s Episcopate 


of Mary (August 14), a citizen of Worcester came up to the — 
figure, which had been the general laughing-stock forsome — 
days, and in a voice of strange emotion exclaimed, ‘Ah, — 
lady, art thou stripped now? I have seen the day that — 
as clean men had been stripped at a pair of gallows, as — 
were they that stripped thee.’ Then he kisses the image, — 
and turns to the people and says, ‘ Ye that be disposed to 4 
offer, the figure is no worse than it was before ;’ ‘having ~ 
a remorse unto her,’ adds the witness, in pity The a 
wretched ‘Sibyl,’ thus exposed and degraded, was sub- — 
sequently conveyed, not to Smithfield, but to Chelsea, in 
company with ‘her old sister of Walsingham,’ and various 
other images, and there publicly burnt amid the jeers of © 
the spectators. 4 

The next letter introduces us to a fertile source of care a 
the condition of the still remaining religious houses. 4 


‘Sir, by this bill inclosed,? your lordship can perceive — 
something how the world doth wag with Warwick College’ — 
[collegiate church at Warwick]. ‘I advertised Master — 
Wattwood’ [one of the canons of the church] ‘speaking ~ 
with him in London, to hasten himself homeward for — 
sparing of expenses, and to refer their whole suit to your ~ 
good remembrance ; but the man, belike, doth delight to — 
lie at London upon the college cost, caring neither for © 
statutes, nor yet injunctions, bearing him bold, I trow, of — 
some authority from your lordship, not considering that 
his authority is to see the statutes kept, and not to break — 
them. I pray you be good lord to the poor college ; so 
poor, that in good sooth, I took not my customable pro- — 
curations’ [episcopal fees] ‘of them in my visitation.3 — 

t Froude, vol. iii. p. 236, from the State Papers. } 

2 The Bill is still preserved and bound up with the letter. Itisa 
complaint dated June 13, 1538, against Wattwood, for ‘injuries and 
wrongs,’ contrary to their statutes, ‘and also in breaking of our lord 
Bishop’s injunctions :’ it is signed by the dean and two of the canons — 
of the Church.—State Paper Office. Chapter House Papers. ’ 


3 Yet, at the dissolution, their revenues amounted to £334 a year, or ; 
upwards of £4,500; not extreme poverty, surely. 


Mistress Statham’s Suit 301 


And, whereas I enjoined them a lecture of Scripture’ 
[some one to read the English Scripture to them], ‘I am 
fain to reward the reader myself, for anything that doth 
come from them : verum id curat populus scilicet’ [I suppose 
the people are much distressed about that], ‘Master 
Wattwood careth greatly for it’ [said ironically]. ‘And 
where’ [whereas] ‘the treasure-house should have three 
sundry keys, both by their statutes, and also my injunctions, 
to which both they be all sworn, he looketh upon them 
altogether as pleaseth himself. Sir, seeing the King’s 
grace hath their chief jewel that they had, they being so 
poor themselves, his highness should do graciously to 
remember them with some piece of some broken abbey, or 
else I fear they will grow shortly to nought; for, as I 
hear, the vicars and other ministers sing and say unwaged. 
But your approved wisdom can consider better than I 
what is to be done therein, and so God prosper you with 
good remembrance of Mistress Statham’s suit. 17 Junii. 
At Hartlebury : short-winded.’? 


For what Mistress Statham, Latimer’s nurse, was suing 
in those days, we cannot now tell; but it was evidently 
not Latimer’s fault if she was unsuccessful. Cranmer, too, 
lent his influence to support the suit, and heartily re- 
quested Cromwell that for his sake, he would the more 
willingly grant what was asked.? Such patrons could 
scarcely ask in vain, and we may hope, therefore, that the 
good lady was not unrewarded for her kind assiduity in 
nursing Latimer. 

We have already heard of ‘ Master Nevell’s’ suit, which 
Latimer had so strongly urged, and of which both felt so 
sure, that on the faith of obtaining the coveted land Nevell 
had married. The suit miscarried, however, in spite of their 
confidence, and Latimer’s next letter is full of lamentation. 

‘Ah my good lord Privy Seal, what should I say, Quum 


* State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, C. 3. 21. 
2 Cranmer’s Letters, p. 375. 


302 Latimer’s Episcopate , 
tuo solius verbo laxabam rele, et nunc tandem res rediit mn 
ignominiam meam’ [as it was at your word alone that I 
let down the net, and now the matter has issued in 
my disgrace], ‘with an honest gentlewoman my poor 
honesty I pledged, which is now distained, and my — 
credence, the greatest treasure that I have, not a little — : 
minised: for that in Durtwych’ [Droitwich], ‘and hen 
about the same, we be fallen into the dirt, and be all- tom : 
dirtied, even up to the ears; we be fone: mocked, and — 
laughed to scorn, ut qui cepimus cedificare, neque consum- ; 
mare potuimus ’ Fas those who began to build and could 
not finish]. ‘A wily Py’ [Mr. Pye, who got the lands 
that Nevell had asked for] ‘hath willy gone between us 4 
and home, when we thought’ [of] ‘nothing less, but, as © 
good HAS souls, made all cocksure. In good faith ip 
would wish to Mr. Py as good a thing as it and better | ig 
too; but not so and after that manner, to the defeating of 
a uit begun and near hand obtained; which if I had 
suspected, I should perchance have preyentied saving that a 
I would not show myself to mistrust your pretence’ 4 
[promised help] ‘nor to have either in doubt or fear your — 
enterprise. But it is now too late to call’ [back] ‘ yester 
day again, and to go about to undo that that is done. oe 
Master Py doth say that the King hath given it him. 1 
| 


pray God much good might it do him; for I will no 
longer anguish myself with a matter that I cannot remedy. 
But I commit altogether to God and to your high dis- 
cretion, which Iam sure meant rightly, and with the loss ~ 
of the same ut in humanis fit rebus, [as usual in human — 
affairs] ‘sought opportunity. 4 
‘But I trust you will not forget the common suit of the : 


whole country: for better a sheriff annual’ [annually 
changed] ‘than perpetual,* unless he be good, which is 


* The sheriff of Worcester in 1538 was Walter Walsh, who had been — 
sheriff for four years; his predecessor Ferrer’s was Sheriff for nine 
years ; and Sir William Compton, Ferrer’s predecessor, was sheriff for y. 
ten years ; after 1538, the sheriffs were changed annually, as Latimer 
here suggested, - 


Clopton’s Activity 303 


not easy to find : and here is much bearing and bolstering, 
and malefactors do not lack their supporters; yet by 
many changings we may chance some time to light upon 
some one good one, among many ill. And your lordship 
doth know well enough that if I be ruled of one at home, 
I am unmeet to rule many from home: for if affection do 
reign in me’ [if I am partial], ‘then I will not’ [rule 
well] ; ‘if ignorance and unexpertness, then I cannot. 

‘ As for the town-clerk of Kidderminster, after due pro- 
bation’? [he] ‘hath confessed his folly : but forasmuch as 
the Commissioners have not authority to punish him 
accordingly, but it is reserved to the assize, where as men 
be friended, so, they say, things be ended, I have no great 
expectation : but I think the Commissioners will shortly 
certify. And as for Master Cornwell and his pretty 
doing’ [all unknown, as well as the town-clerk’s folly], 
‘T will write shortly. Thus, God preserve you. Postridie 
Fo. Bapt. [June 25.] At Hartlebury. 

Last October, when Latimer was in his visitation, we 
heard him aes of the virulence of a Mr. Clopton, 
near Stratford-on-Avon, who had been stirring up the 
peasants against the Reforming preachers. His re- 
monstrances against the unruly squire had apparently 
produced no effect ; Clopton had now proceeded to open 
treason, and Latimer once more had to write and invoke 
the aid of Cromwell. 

‘Now, good my lord Privy Seal, show your charitable 
goodness in this matter of Mr. Lucy. I have sent unto 
your lordship his letters. If that Mr. William Clopton 
may be suffered thus to rage, it will be but folly for any 
true preachers to come into that part of my diocese. I 
heartily require herein both the use of your authority, and 

® Miscellaneous Papers, Record Office, vol. iv. Several persons were 
- burned for denying the King’s supremacy at Kidderminster, July 27 
and 31, 1538. Doctor Taylor, chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester 


preached. 
* State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, C. 3. 21. 


304 Latimer’s Episcopate 


also of your counsel; and that you would send for 
priest’ [perhaps Sir Large] ‘and also that Mr. Clopton, — 
and to reduce him into some order ; and according to 
justice to end the matter, which is now at length made 
treason, and so not appertaining to my court. And in 
what case are they in, that have veiled treason so long ? 
But I refer all things to your approved wisdom, and 
singular favour towards the truth of God’s word, and 
execution of justice, that good Master Lucy be not a 
couraged in his hearty goodness. . 
‘Yours, this St. James’ Day’ [July 25, 1538], ‘even now v 
going to horse) when Master Lucy’s servant came to me, 
which ’ fewhioily ‘if your lordship be at leisure, can tell the 
whole process. At Hartlebury.’* ; 
While Latimer was thus busying himself with 
multitudinous cares and duties of his office, a great and 
important step in the progress of the Reformation was 
gradually being effected all over England. The smaller 
religious houses had already been suppressed, their mani- 
fold vices and irregularities having roused popular indignz 
tion against them. ‘The larger houses were left standing, 
and Parliament had acknowledged that they in gene al 
were free from the scandalous ignorance and immorality 
of the minor houses; but Henry, whose treasury a 
exhausted, began to look with covetous eyes on their large 
revenues and valuable possessions. As a matter of policy 
the existence of these establishments, holding so much of 
the land of England in perpetual mortmain, was hostile to 
the material progress of an enterprising nation: and the 
toleration of large and wealthy bodies of ecclesiastics, 
exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishops, and bo 
by their vows and organization to recognise the author 
of the Pope, could not but be unfriendly to ecclesiastic: 
order and the progress of the Reformation, In fact, their 
continued existence was absolutely incompatible with ‘ the 
* State Paper Office, bi supra. 


The Religious Houses 305 


principles of the Reformation; and in no Reformed 
country can such institutions ever find root. The great 
abbots and lordly rulers of these wealthy establishments 
were themselves sensible of the insecurity of their position ; 
and many of them were willing, due provision being made 
for their own interests, to surrender their houses, with all 
their possessions, manors, tithes, jewels, furniture, and 
rights of every kind to the King ;* visitors very quietly 
and rapidly going through every county, using all manner 
of influences, good and bad, to induce the abbots to 
surrender, and with a very considerable amount of success, 
no fewer than one hundred and sixteen having surrendered 
in this very year 1538.7 Latimer’s opinion on this subject, 
we have already heard, and we shall again hear ; but the 
recollection of what was in progress will explain many 
of the allusions in the next letter to Cromwell. 


‘Sir, as I perceive by this bearer Mr. Evance, I have to 
thank your good lordship for the same, for that you were 
good lord unto him, and that the rather for my sake, as he 
saith ; for the which and all other your singular goodness 
I most heartily thank you, and even so desire you to 
continue the same; and I shall daily pray for your 
prosperous estate, according to my bounden duty. 

‘A certain man told me that the bloody abbot’ [perhaps 
the abbot; of Evesham, called bloody for an unknown but 
doubtless sufficient reason] ‘should have said’ [7.e., had 
said] ‘alate among his brethren, that his last coming up to 
London, by my occasion, cost him, beside the charges of 
his journey up and down, seven score pounds: wherefore 


t The forms of surrender may be read in full in Rymer, vol. xiv.; and 
in Burnet, vol. iv. p. 223. 

2 See the list in Burnet, vol. iv. p. 234, etc. 

3 It may have been the abbot of Hales. A letter from Richard Tracy 
(son of the Tracy whose testament was so famous) to Robert Acton, 
complaining of the bad conduct of the abbot of Hales, is in State Paper 
Office. Mis. Leiters, Henry VIII., vol. iv. no. 49. See Foxe, vol. v. 
app. iii. note. 


26 


306 Latimer’s Episcopate x 5 


he was not able to make provision for household ; and 
therefore required the best mitre, the best cross, and 
another thing or two, to make chevance’ [to raise credit] — 
‘withal for provision. But now you say, ‘What matter — 
maketh that to you?” Truth it is: but yet to tell it you 
I thought it not amiss, because it may make matter to 
you : for so may all the jewels of the house be surveyed 
away and you not knowing’ [and so the King’s treasury — 
not be enriched with the wealth of the houses]. i 
‘This letter inclosed came to me yesterday from your 
lordship’s visitor.t I send it, ut videat dominatio tua quid ~ 
sit actum’ [that your lordship may see what has been 
done]. ‘God forbid but his labour should be well taken ! 
and God forbid that such deceivable hypocrisy should up 
again and stand at any man’s suit ; no, though they would 
give aureos montes’ [mountains of gold] ‘therefore. 
‘Mr. Nevell, your hearty servant to all his power, took 
a pardoner’ [person having licence to sell indulgences — 
from the Pope] ‘alate misordering himself, and therefore — 
took his seal from him ; and because the pardoner doth 
not return again for it, hath sent it to your lordship, 
trusting that your lordship will pardon him for so doing. 
Such new things do but maintain the people in their old 
superstition, as the pardoners doth abuse them and the 
poor people doth take them. I trust in your good lord- 
ship as touching to have a good neighbour :? unde pendet 
ut cum fructu ipse preedicem, alioquin totam noctem labora- 
_ turus et parum aut nihil capturus’ [for on that depends my 
« The letter, still preserved, is from Richard Ingworth, giving an 
account of his visits to eighteen places, of which he had left but one © 
standing ; he was anxious to know how the Lord Privy Seal took the 
matter, and adds, ‘The friars, in those parts that I have been in, have — 
many favourers, and great labour is made for their continuance still, 
and divers trust to see some of them set up again, and some be up to 
sue for some of them to stand.’ 
2 Probably Latimer means a good bishop in the neighbouring dioc 
of Hereford, vacant by the death of Fox; he got, as we have already 


said, Edmund Bonner as his neighbour, but happily was not long 
troubled with him. if 


Further Injunctions 307 


preaching with advantage, otherwise I may labour all night 
and catch little or nothing]. ‘But I doubt nothing but 
your lordship hath me in remembrance. 

‘Hereby’ [at Redstone Ferry] ‘is an hermitage in a 
rock by Severn, able to lodge five hundred men, and as 
ready for thieves or traitors as true men. I would not 
have hermits masters of such dens, but rather that some 
faithful man had it. Mr. Robert Acton, at his return, 
shall shew you further. 

‘I pray your good lordship take in worth this foolish 
farraginary scribbling. 

‘Postridie Bartho. [Aug. 25.] At Hartlebury.’? 


In September, Cromwell issued a second series of 
injunctions to the clergy, proceeding still further in the 
direction of a Reformation than the previous series: 
indeed, this second set of injunctions may not improperly 
be looked upon as the culminating point of the Reforma- 
tion in the reign of Henry VIII. They ordered a copy 
of the ‘whole Bible of the largest volume in English’? to 
be set up in some convenient place in every parish church ; 
the clergy were not to discourage any from reading it, but 
were ‘expressly to provoke and exhort every person to 
read the same.’ Sermons were to be preached once a 
quarter at least, ‘declaring the very Gospel of Christ,’ 
exhorting the hearers to works of charity, mercy, and 
faith, and discouraging pilgrimages, offering of candles, 
and kissing of relics as tending to idolatry and superstition. 
Moreover, all images to which pilgrimages and offerings 
were wont to be made, were to be summarily taken down, 
that they might no longer be an offence to God, and a 
danger to the souls of the King’s subjects. 

Much, indeed, remained still to be accomplished : there 
was urgent need of a further purification of the creed 


* State Paper Office, ubi supra. 
? For the meaning of this, which has been often misunderstood, see 
Anderson’s Annals of the English Bible. 


308 Latimer’s Episcopate a 


from Romish error ; and many practices liable to super- 
stitious abuse were still permitted and even sanctioned. 
But very much, also, had been effected ; and with a free — 
Bible eae eee the reach of the people, good 
hope might be entertained of still further progress. That — 
progress, as we shall presently see, was, for the rest of — 
Henry’s reign, checked and restrained ; but the restraint 
was only fora time. Trial and persecution were perhaps — 
wanted to give depth and solidity to the great work, just 
as the tree needs the rude shock of the wind, and the 
biting cold of winter, to strengthen its trunk and mature © 
its growth ; but in due season the result of what had been 
done became manifest, and a more complete Reformation 
was finally established as the religion of England. 

Nothing is more to be deprecated in surveying the 
progress of the Reformation in this country than that— 
narrow, censorious spirit, which recognises no merit in 
anything that is done, so long as anything else still remains. 
undone. Ecclesiastical history is often, in this respect, 
more unjust than profane history has been ; and splenetic 
historians have scarcely recognised the claims of Cromwell, 
Cranmer, Latimer, and their fellow-labourers, to the grati- 
tude of their countrymen, because they were slow in- 
perceiving the errors of the system in which they had 
been educated, and only gradually arrived at a clear 
perception of fie full import of the doctrines which they ; 
had adopted. The Apostles themselves were slow in 
comprehending the whole meaning of what they were= 
taught : Jewish prejudices adhered to Peter, and had to 
be removed by express and repeated revelations ; so long 
as the Temple stood, they probably all joined—in_ its 
worship, though that had been abrogated by the coming” 
of the true Lamb. And if the English Reformers were 


Progress of the Reformation 309 


them full praise and gratitude for what they did accom- 
plish. 

Although, therefore, the Church of England, as it stood 
at the period of Cromwell’s injunctions, was by no means, 
as yet, perfectly reformed, we shall gratefully acknowledge 
how much had been already done. It was in this spirit, 
contemporary Reformers on the Continent spoke of it, in 
the language of deep thankfulness to God for what had 
been effected, not of narrow censure for what had been 
omitted. 

‘We all of us,’ says Bucer in a letter to Cranmer, in 
October, 1538,? ‘acknowledge how graciously England is 
dealt with, to whom alone it is given so far to recover 
itself in the midst of so many impediments. And we 
count you’ [Cranmer, Fox, Latimer, and others] ‘altogether 
happy in the Lord, from whose labours has resulted such 
fruit. I am anxious to write these things that you might 
know that all the godly men, who have experience in eccle- 
siastical matters, consider the progress of the kingdom of 
Christ among you as most extensive, and your exertions 
to promote it exceedingly successful ; on which account 
they most joyfully praise and extol the mercy and goodness 
of our Lord Jesus Christ towards all of us, whom we pray 
both in your country and in ours to restore and establish 
everything that is yet to be desired.’ 

We have already referred to one of the causes which 
led to Henry’s withdrawing, at the close of his reign, from 
those principles in which he had hitherto walked slowly, 
perhaps, but steadily and consistently. The failure of the 
negotiations with the German Commissioners had un- 
questionably produced a feeling of irritation in his mind ; 
he seemed to himself to have made so many concessions, 
that he was the more obstinately determined to stand by 
the few remaining Romish principles which he still 
retained. And, unfortunately, just at this critical period, 

® Zurich Letters, p. 525. 


310 Latimer’s Episcopate ce 


é 


the ablest of all the Roman Catholic prelates returned to — 
England, after an absence of three years.t During these _ 
three years many important steps had been taken, and the © 
Reformation had made very satisfactory progress; the 
Romish party being conspicuously inferior to their oppo- — 
nents, in the inability of their leaders to cope with such — 
men as Cromwell, Cranmer, Latimer, and Fox. ; 
On Gardiner’s return, however, they at last found a 
leader equal to their emergencies. Trained in the school — 
of Wolsey, an accomplished diplomatist, an acute con- — 
troversialist, a man of wonderful shrewdness and insight, — 
of considerable learning, of immense capacity for public — 
affairs, indefatigable, ingenious, subtle, unrelenting, in- 
flexible in his hostility to the doctrines of the Reformers, — 
his presence in England was the greatest external obstacle © 
to further progress of the Reformation. He was not a 
favourite with Henry, who somewhat distrusted his honesty — 
as a diplomatist, but his vast knowledge of Continental 
affairs made him indispensable to the King ; no one better — 
understood Henry’s character ; and, with a higher skill — 
than the mere adulation of a courtier, he was able to use 
Henry’s power and convictions for the promotion of his — 
own views. His hand may be traced in much of the 
subsequent legislation of the reign ; whatever is reactionary, 
whatever seems like an attempt to return to the old ~ 
impossible position of Catholic orthodoxy minus a Pope, — 
may, with little hesitation, be ascribed to the ability and — 
influence of this great Popish champion. No one better — 
understood than Cromwell what was involved in Gardiner’s 
reappearance on the scene ; it implied a personal struggle — 
for superiority, from which, for the weaker party in the — 
fight, not disgrace only but ruin and death might result. — 
* Historians in general, Protestant as well as Romish, have been 
utterly mistaken as to the period of Gardiner’s return. But Christopher 
Anderson has ascertained from Gardiner’s own account of his expenses — 


{Cotton MSS., Vespasian], that he was abroad from October, 1535, to 
September 28, 1538. 


An Unruly Canon 311 


The course of this struggle to the death we shall have to 
mark in the sequel; but before many weeks elapse we 
shall find melancholy proofs of the presence and power of 
Gardiner in England. 

Meantime, we shall return to Latimer and his cares. 
_ We have already heard of Mr. Wattwood and his disorderly 
proceedings at Warwick church ; and Latimer’s next letter 
shows that the unruly canon was now openly defying the 
authority of his diocesan. 

‘As touching Mr. Wattwood, you wot what you have to 
do ; and I doubt not but will do as appertaineth thereunto : 
Whereas he was put up in my visitation for a lecher, a 
fighter, and a disquieter of his company, I cannot have him 
to answer thereunto. He beareth him very boldly of your 
lordship’ [trusting to your lordship] ; ‘and how much he 
regardeth my injunctions, your lordship may perceive by 
the testimony of all his company, whose letter I do send 
unto your lordship herein enclosed. As for Master 
Wattwood, so that he be reformed and I discharged’ 
[relieved of all accusation], ‘I care not how little I have 
to do with him; saving only to pray for him that God 
would make him a good man. I write nothing of him but 
_ I dare avow it, with more. And I write it of no malice 
that I do bear him, but of good-will that I bear both to 
him and others. I desire you to be good lord to the 
college, and set you therein some good order, for it is not 
without need ; for Master Wattwood, I ascertain you, is 
no meet man to do what he listeth. If he inform any- 
thing of me, as I know he can feign and lie to make for 
his purpose, I dare come to my answer. At Hartlebury, 
2 October’ [1538]. ? 

The diocese of Worcester, it will be remembered, had 
long been held by non-resident Italian bishops ; and the 
great towns, Bristol, Gloucester, and Worcester, had in 


* The enclosed letter has not been preserved. 
* State Paper Office, ubi supra. 


312 Latimer’s Episcopate 


consequence suffered from the want of the fostering care 


“Oe 


which an active prelate might be expected to exhibit. — 
Latimer was anxious to make amends for the remissness of 


his predecessors ; and the suppression of so many religious 


houses, filling the royal treasury, and placing lands at the 
disposal of the King and his ministers, seemed a favourable 
opportunity for securing some benefits to the long-neglected 
cities. This will explain his next letter. 


‘S1r,—I may marvel greatly that you do not blame me, 
but will take so patiently this my importunity. Well, to 
my purpose ; for I must go on like myself. As for Bristol, 
sir, I am sure you will remember in tempore’ [at the 
proper time] ‘of yourself, without me. Gloucester you 
have remembered already, by my occasion partly. Now 
Worcester is behind, an ancient and a poor city, and yet 
replenished with men of honesty, though not most wealthy ; 
for by reason of their lady’ [image of the Virgin, much 
esteemed and resorted to in pilgrimage] ‘they have been 
given to much idleness; but now that she is gone’ 
[stripped, and found to be only a wooden bishop, and sent 
to Chelsea to be burnt], ‘they be turned to laboriousness, 
and so from ladyness to godliness. But, sir, this city is 
greatly charged with three things: their school, their 
bridge, and their wall. As for their school, it hath 
been maintained heretofore by a brotherhood, called a 
gyld, I trow, not without some guile, popishly pardoning, 
and therefore now worthily decayed ; so that I am fain 
myself, as pooras Iam, to retain the schoolmaster there with 
my livery’ [viz.], ‘meat and drink upon the holiday, and 
some part of his living beside, because he is honest, and 
bringeth up their youth after the best sort. And as for 
their bridge and their wall, as they be necessary for the 
city and the country both, so they be now not without 
great need of reparation, as I hear say. 

‘Wherefore, these premises considered, if the King’s 


ae 


Anabaptists 313 


grace of his most gracious goodness, through your lord- 
ship’s good advertisement, would vouchsafe to bestow the 
two friaries, Black and Grey, with their appurtenances 
upon this his poor ancient city, to the maintenance of the 
foresaid three things, so necessary for so many good 
purposes, et illius majestas rem optimo rege dignam, et tua 
dominatio rem optimo consiliario non indignam procul dubio 

— facerent’ [both his majesty would do a thing worthy of an 
excellent king, and your lordship would do a thing not 
unworthy of an excellent counsellor], ‘an honourable 
foundation, a comely commutation ; popishness changed 
into holiness, beggars unbeggared to avoid beggary ; que 
sit mutatio dextra Excelsi’ [such be the change made by the 
right hand of the Most High], ‘when lip-labouring of a 
few lewd friars should be turned into right praying of the 
whole city and town for the King’s majesty, and all His 
Grace’s posterity. 

‘Thus we commit our whole matter to your goodness, 
and you yourself to the goodness of God, long to continue 
to such good purposes. 

‘At Hartlebury, October 6 [1538]. 

*P.S.—And’ [if] ‘your lordship would have thanked 
the King’s grace’s highness for my stag, in my name, I had 
been much bounden to you. I have made many merry in 
these parts, for I eat not all myself. God save the 
King !’? 


We have already alluded to the existence in England of 
a number of Reformers more advanced in their theological 
opinions than Latimer and Cranmer. There were a few 
both among the clergy and laity who wished to proceed 
with more rapid steps, and who strongly dissented from 
the doctrines of the Articles and the Institution in many 
important respects. These Anabaptists and Sacramentaries, 
as they were styled, began to attract the attention of the 


* State Paper Office; printed, not very correctly, in Latimer’s 
Remains, p. 403. 


314 Latimer’s Episcopate 


authorities in Church and State by their teaching ; the c 
party mingling, as on the Continent, the opinions of t 
modern Baptists with certain vague, lawless notions, 1 
easily compatible with any fixed form of government ; th 
others denying the real presence, and maintaining th 
views on the holy communion which were genera 
received among the Swiss Reformers. 

On October 1, 1538, a commission was issued 
Cranmer, Barnes, Crome, and some other divines, not, 
however, including Latimer, to try certain Anabaptist 
foreigners who had ‘lately come into the realm ;’ and 
one or two unfortunate men bore fagots at Paul’s Cross, 
and two were consigned to the flames as heretics:* a 
grim, emphatic protest on Henry’s part against his being 
identified with German opinions. A still more melancholy 
scene we shall presently be required to witness ; meantime 


yet subtlety in him, but rather much simplicity and 
innocency, though his letters were written, as they seemed, 
very suspiciously. His delight was to have them punished 
which were bruited to deny the sacrament’ [i.e., the real 


somewhat heard already, trusting to hear more, and so afte 
his affection enlarged his pen at liberty’ [wrote out of the 


* Anderson’s Annals, vol. ii. p. 18. 


Scurfeld’s Case 315 


but he hath been hampered therefore meetly well already 
andis now re-carried again to Bristol, there to put in sureties, 
lacking such here, for his forthcoming whensoever upon 
any occasion any of the King’s grace’s council shall call 
for him. And after such sort, after much grating’ [cross- 
questioning] ‘of him, and yet finding no other thing in 
him, we thought best to despatch him and to remit him. 
And so we now commit your good lordship most heartily 
to God. 

‘P.S.—This bearer, your orator, John Russell’ [Sheriff 
of Worcestershire], ‘can tell your lordship how your 
lordship’s letters might perfect the commonwealth about 
Tewkesbury. The same hath to thank your lordship, and 
I also for his sake, for your goodness towards him’ [in 
granting someabbey lands]. ‘October 18, at Hartlebury.’* 


Another letter follows, of no public interest, except as 
contributing to fill up the picture of Latimer’s episcopal life. 


‘Sir,—This bearer, Mr. Acton’ [known to us before, 
related to Humphrey Monmouth], ‘is altogether yours, 
under the King’s grace, to be where as your lordship shall 
think his service most necessary ; but when he is above’ 
{in London], ‘then we must lack him here beneath. He 
can tell you what proceedings be in our sessions, and how 
men be inclined either to justice or from. Icanno more; 
but I pray God send the King’s grace many such trusty 
servants in all parts of His Grace’s realm. And God 
continue your life to the performance of all your, good 
purposes, The prior of the Black Friars in Worcester, 
called Richard Edwards, when he surrendered up his 
house’ [in August last], ‘was promised his capacity freely, 
both for himself and all his brethren. He is honest, as 
Mr. Acton can tell. I tolerate him in my diocese, trusting 
that you will extend your charity to him. October 19, at 
Hartlebury.’ 2 


* State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers. ? Ibid. 


316 Latimer’s Episcopate 


A fortnight before this letter was written, on October 4, 
a commission was addressed to Latimer, in conjunction 
with three others, directing them to proceed to the 
monastery of Hailes, and investigate the famous relic — 
called the ‘Blood of Hailes,’ which was held in the © 
greatest veneration all over the West of England. It was — 
an eminently congenial occupation to one who had so often — 
denounced pilgrimages and relics; and Latimer would — 
enjoy the detection and exposure of the fraud which had 
vexed his soul years before, when he was poor parson of © 
West Kington, and saw his parishioners trooping along the ~ 
Foss-way to worship and offer before the venerated relic. 
Other matters are referred to in the next letter, but this — 
exposure of the “ Blood of Hailes” is the most interesting 
to us. ’ 
‘And, sir, as to Master Wattwood’ [already too well 
known to us for his disorderly conduct], ‘I have done 
according to the tenor of your lordship’s letters ; and yet — 
at my next speaking with your lordship I will purge 
myself of his false accusation, as he himself hath con- 
fescos. that he made untrue relation upon me in one 
thing. j 
‘Ad hec’ [besides], ‘a certain man did write unto me — 
alate these words, “Friar Bartlow doth much hurt in © 
Cornwall and in Devonshire ; both with open preaching, ~ 
and also with private communication.” If this be true, — 
he hath some comfort from Rome I fear me, and I divine 
much, of Dr. Nicolas’ [an Italian, conspicuous in opposing 
Henry’s divorce case]; ‘a man with whom my fantasy 
never wrought withal. a 

‘Now, sir, this bearer, the Abbot of Evesham’ [successor 
to the ‘Bloody Abbot,’ of a previous letter], ‘required 
me to make some mention of him, and to thank your good 
lordship for him, which I am bounden to do most heartily. 
And, sir, among many that your lordship hath done for, 
I think you shall find but few that will better remember, 


The ‘Blood of Hailes’ 317 


to his power, your beneficialness, than he will. Verily he 
seemeth to me a very civil and honest man; and one 
that putteth all his trust in your good lordship, that of 
your goodness, as you have begun with him and made 
him, so you will continue good lord unto him, to the 
maintaining of him in his right of such things which he 
hath obtained by your only goodness. 

‘Sir, we have been bolting and sifting the “ Blood of 
Hailes” all thisforenoon. It was wonderously closely and 
craftily inclosed and stopped up, for taking of care. And 
it cleaveth fast to the bottom of the little glass that it is 
in. And verily it seemeth to be an unctuous gum and 
compound of many things. It hath a certain unctuous 
moistness, and though it seem somewhat like blood when 
it is in the glass, yet when any parcel of the same is taken 
out, it turneth to a yellowness, and is cleaving like glue. 
But we have not yet examined all the monks ; and there- 
fore this my brother abbot’ [Abbot of Worcester, one of 
the Commissioners ] ‘shall tell your lordship what he hath 
seen and heard in this matter. And in the end your lord- 
ship shall know altogether. But we perceive not by your 
commission whether we shall send it up or leave it here, 
or certify thereof as we know. 28 Oct.: at Hailes,’: 


This miserable imposture, a few drops of yellowish gum 
like bird-lime, preserved in a small phial,? was shown to 
crowds of pilgrims as the very blood of Christ, some of 
those drops which had been shed on the cross for the 
redemption of the world; and they were told that the 
sight of it with the bodily eye conveyed assurance of 
eternal salvation. It was afterwards publicly held up 
to scorn by Hilsey at Paul’s Cross ; and those who had 
so long been duped by the cunning of the priests were 
invited to satisfy themselves that the so-called blood of 


* State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers. 
* A more detailed account is given in the Official Report of the 
Commissioners, printed in Latimer’s Remains, p. 407. 


318 Latimer’s Episcopate 


Christ was nothing more than melted honey, colou 
with saffron, a 

But we must now resume the narrative of the genera 
course of events after Gardiner’s return. We have 
already noticed the existence of Reformers who were 
bold enough to deny entirely that doctrine of transub- 
stantiation, which was still the creed of the Church of - 
England, and the belief even of Cranmer and Latimer. 
Reports, founded on the recent negotiations with the 
German Commissioners, had been circulating in England, 
that even Henry had been gained over to the belief of the - 
Swiss Reformers, or Sacramentaries. These reports were, 
of course, altogether groundless, and Henry naturally felt 
annoyed at what he considered a grievous impeachment 
of his orthodoxy. Gardiner was acute enough to perceive 
his advantage, and suggested to the King that his honour 
required him to manifest his attachment to the old doctrine 
of transubstantiation, by inflicting the full penalties of the 
law upon some of those teachers who were openly impugning - 
the real corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament.- 

A victim was only too speedily found. Lambert, one 
of Bilney’s converts, and an able and zealous Reformer, — 
whom we have already seen before Latimer and Cranmer 
in 1536 for his opinions, was the unfortunate sufferer. He 
was present at a sermon in which Dr. Taylor, one of the © 
three preachers appointed in Humphrey Monmouth’s will, , 
had defended the doctrine of the real presence against 
the Sacramentaries ; and after sermon he spoke to the 
preacher, and offered in a courteous way to refute his 
doctrines. Taylor asked him to put his arguments in 
writing, and Lambert incautiously complied. The papas 
was shown to Barnes, who, with his former precipitancy, 
laid the matter formally faa the Archbishop. Lambert 


t Latimer, it is said by some historians, was also present, but this” 
is a mistake, a chronological confusion of two different occurrences ; 
Latimer was then in his diocese. Barnes was hoping to get a livi 
through Cranmer’s influence. Cranmer’s Letters, p. 380. 


Lambert’s Trial 319 


was again, therefore, summoned to Lambeth, to answer 
the charge of heretical teaching brought against him. 

According to the creed then sanctioned by law, and 
firmly held by all the leading Reformers, as well as by their 
opponents, his teaching was unquestionably heretical, and 
whatever might be Cranmer’s reluctance, there was clearly 
no alternative: Lambert must either retract or be con- 
demned as a heretic. Lambert, however, was not the 
man easily to abandon his principles ; he defended his 
opinions with great ability, and, in the end, is said to 
have appealed to the King, deceived probably by the 
reports then circulating that Henry was favourable to 
his views.t This was the very opportunity that Gardiner 
longed for. The King, he suggested, might now make it 
clear to all his subjects that these reports were groundless, 
and that whatever had been done in disowning the Pope, 
England was not yet to be the home of heretics. 

A royal commission summoned the bishops and nobles 
to London, where great preparations were made for a 
grand theological tournament, in which the orthodoxy and 
controversial prowess of Henry were to be displayed to 
the terror of all heretics and the joy of all true sub- 
jects. After some preliminary skirmishing, in a style 
that sufficiently indicated to Lambert the impossibility 
of his receiving a fair trial, the real debate began on the 
nature of the presence of Christ in the sacrament. 

‘Is the sacrament of the altar,’ asked Henry, lifting his 
cap as he spoke, ‘the body of Christ or not ?’ 

‘After a certain manner,’ Lambert replied, ‘it is the 
body of Christ, as St. Augustine has said.’ 

‘Answer me not out of St. Augustine,’ the King 
rejoined ; ‘tell me plainly, is it the body of Christ or 
not ?’ 

Lambert, thus appealed to, denied that it was the body 


* These reports are alluded to frequently, ¢.g., in Theobald’s letter to 
Cromwell, October 22, 1538, printed in Ellis, series 3, vol. iii. 


320 Latimer’s Episcopate 


of Christ; and Henry, turning to Cranmer, bade the 
Archbishop proceed to refute the heresy. The primate 
argued with his customary gentle courtesy, yet seemed 
somewhat perplexed by Lambert’s arguments, and by no 
means bore himself to Henry’s satisfaction. Gardiner — 
then struck in impetuously ; and Tunstal and Stokesley, q 
and other six bishops (perhaps including Latimer, though 
he is never specified), contributed their aid to overthrow ~ 
the one solitary heretical champion. Lambert for some 
time defended himself nobly and skilfully, but at length, — 
worn out with speaking, he relinquished the useless task 
of refuting the saine arguments over and over again, and — 
listened in silence. 

Henry concluded the debate as he had begun it: 
‘ What sayest thou now?’ he asked, ‘after all the reasons — 
of these learned men ; art thou yet satisfied? Wilt thou 
live or die ?’ 

‘T yield myself wholly to your Majesty’s will, was the — 
reply. 

‘Commit thyself unto the cies of God,’ the Kings q 
answered, ‘and not unto mine.’ 4 

‘My soul I do indeed commend unto God, but my ~ 
body I submit wholly to your clemency.’ ; 

Henry was not then in any mood for clemency, and he © 
pronounced the fatal sentence, ‘If you commit yourself — 
unto my judgment, you must die, for I will be no patron ~ 
of heretics.’ 

Four days after, on November 20, Lambert perished — 
in the flames at Smithfield. His death, whether from — 
design or from accident, was attended with circumstances 
of unusually barbarous auffeting ¢ ; but he was brave and 
steadfast to the end, expiring with these words on his lips, — 
‘None but Christ ; none but Christ.’ * 


« The narrative may be found at greater length in any of the 
chroniclers, all of whom, however, seem to have borrowed from — 
Foxe. 


A Fruitful Death 321 


This was a melancholy revival of those flames of per- 
secution which had slumbered awhile. Well might 
Gardiner be elated with his triumph; he had not only 
committed Henry to a policy which was likely to retard 
the further progress of the Reformation, and to frustrate 
all hopes of an alliance with the German Protestants, but 
he had compelled the leaders of the English Reformation, 
- Cromwell and Cranmer, to assist in the condemnation of 
one whom they all esteemed. Yet Lambert’s death and 
his arguments were not in vain. Cranmer, who had been 
unconvinced by all the learned writings of the Continental 
Reformers against transubstantiation, was somewhat shaken 
by the arguments of Lambert, enforced as they were by 
his consistency and pious fortitude ; and thus the martyr’s 
courage and wisdom gave the first impulse to that change 
of opinion in the leading-English Reformers, which at last 
compelled them to abandon the great stronghold of Popish 
doctrine—the Sacrifice of the Mass. 

To those who have carefully followed the course of this 
biography, it cannot be necessary to add any refutation of 
the reckless imputations against the honesty of Cranmer 
and Latimer in their proceedings concerning Lambert. 
To speak of Cranmer, as some have done, as ‘ persecuting 
Lambert for doctrines which he himself professed as soon 
as it was safe to do so,’ is simply to say what is not true. 
History written in this fashion is the basest species of 
literature with which a language can be infested. 

Having taken this decisive step, Henry proceeded to 
follow it up by issuing various injunctions and instructions 
defining the limits within which the creed of the subjects 
was to be restrained. Both the great religious parties 
were required to mould themselves according to the royal 
will; and both must have felt themselves aggrieved by 
the royal injunctions. On the very day of Lambert’s 
trial a proclamation was issued, condemning the opinions 
of the Anabaptists and Sacramentaries, and forbidding 

21 


322 Latimer’s Episcopate 


any one unless learned in divinity to ‘dispute or 
upon the sacrament of the altar, on pain of losing 
goods, and chattels.’ The clergy were ordered in 


fication, holy water, consecrated bread, and similar rites 
and customs. Thomas-a-Becket was denounced as a rebel 
and not a saint, his images and pictures were to be 


people should thereby grow into further superstition. 
On the other hand, a heavy blow was inflicted upon 
the Reforming party by the enactment that all married 


those customs so long associated with superstitious abuses 
were to be retained in full vigour ; and Henry appeared 


of what had been abolished, than to advance in the 
direction of a further reformation of religion.t There 
was not, indeed, much actual declension exhibited it 
the injunctions; but the royal authority, and all 
strength of the royal character, were interposed — 
obstacles barring the way to all further progress. 
Gardiner conceived hopes of inducing the King to 
revive some of the ceremonies that had been abro- 
gated ; some of the Romish prelates were busily pre- 
paring a book of ceremonies for the instruction of the 
public mind; and, in short, the prospects of th 
Reformers were beginning to be somewhat clouded. — 


* See the injunctions, etc., in Fowe, vol. v. ; Burnet, vol. iv. p. 396 
vol. vi. p. 220. 


A Late Confession 323 


Latimer had been summoned with the other bishops 
to London to Lambert’s trial; and on the evening of 
the trial he again writes to Cromwell :— 

‘If it be your pleasure to know with what kind of 
relics the ‘Blood of Hailes” is accompanied, read this 
letter inclosed, and then do as shall be seen unto your 
approved wisdom. The letter must return again to me 
to satisfy the writer’s mind. If Master Nevell shall 
remove St. Kenelm’ [chapel at Hailes], ‘then he shall 
find his shoe full for a relic. 

‘I would have waited upon your lordship myself, but 
that I must preach to-morrow for Master Manworth at 
Barking’ [one of the sermons, perhaps, appointed by 
Humphrey Monmouth’s will]. ‘I doubt not but your 
good lordship of your accustomed goodness doth 
remember Gloucester. The Lady-abbess of Malling: 
hath instantly desired me to thank your good lordship 
for your goodness towards her. November 16’ [1538].? 

It was probably on one of these hurried expeditions 
to London that the incidents occurred which Strype 
and Latimer himself have related. He had travelled 
by Oxford, this being represented to him ‘as a gainer 
and fairer way’; and had remained all night in that 
ancient city. The talk of Oxford at the time was the 
recent execution of a traitor. ‘When the rope was 
about his neck,’ so Latimer repeated the story before 
King Edward, as an illustration of the unsearchable 
deceitfulness of the human heart, ‘no man could per- 
suade him that he was in any fault, and stood there 
a great while in the protestation of his innocency. 
They hanged him, and cut him down somewhat too 
soon, afore he was clean dead, then they drew him to 
the fire, and he revived, and then he coming to his 


* The abbey of Mallii.s, in Kent, was surrendered October 29, 1538 ; 
the abbess was Margaret Vernon.—Letters on the Suppression of the 
Monasteries. 2 State Paper Office. 


324 Latimer’s Episcopate 


remembrance confessed his fault, and said he 
guilty.”* On the morning after his arrival in O: 
he attended the lecture on Divinity; and Smith, 
lecturer, a Romanist, but a time-server, ‘laid aside 
ordinary reading, and for that day read out of the fifth 
chapter to the Romans, urging most earnestly the 
doctrine of justification by faith.’ Latimer was agr 

ably surprised to hear such opinions taught by one 
whom he believed to be a determined opponent of th 
Reformation, and promised to recommend him for pro- 
motion. Next day, when Latimer had left for his diocese, 


he had taught it because ‘he was astonished at 
presence of so great a man,’ and entreated his hear 
to excuse him on the score of youth, though his g 
hair belied his excuse. He was one of those who ¢ 
puted subsequently against Latimer at Oxford. 2 

On returning to his diocese, Latimer resumed again his 
correspondence with Cromwell, the subject of the sup 
pression of the monasteries naturally engaging much of 
his attention, and forming a frequent theme in his letters. 
The following letter has been frequently printed :— 


‘Srr,—I have to thank your good lordship for many 
things ; and now alate for your singular goodness shewed 
as I understand, to Master Lucy, a very good gentle 
and also towards Master Acton, another of the same 
but of this my duty more at more leisure. And yet this 
much now will I say, and not say it alone, but with many, 
that your lordship, one man, have promoted many mor 
honest men since God promoted you, than hath many mer 


natio tua, ut sic inter nobiles nobilissimus evadas. | 


* Latimer s Sermons. ? Strype, Eccl. Mem. ii. 1, 70, et .Y 


A Prior’s Appeal 325 


quidem nihil esse possit nobilius quam bonos viros evehere, 
malos auiem reprimere ; id quod tibi hactenus usu venit, 
plus omnibus facere’ [as born not for yourself only, but 
for the good of many. May God, who does all things, 
grant that your lordship may long live for the same 
purpose, that so you may be the noblest of the noble. 
For, indeed, nothing can be more noble than to advance 
good men, and to restrain bad, which you have hitherto 
been wont to do more than all others have done]. 

‘But now, sir, another thing, that, by your favour, I 
might be a motioner unto you, at the request of an honest 
man, the Prior of Great Malvern’ [Richard Bedyll], ‘in 
my diocese, though not of my diocese’ [being exempt, 
and subject to the Abbot of Westminster] ; ‘referring the 
success of the whole matter to your only approved wisdom 
and benign goodness, in any case: for I do know that I 
do play the fool, but yet with my foolishness I somewhat 
quiet an unquiet man, and mitigate his heaviness : which 
I am bold to do with you, for that I know, by experience, 
your goodness, that you will bear with fools in their frail- 
ness. This man both heareth and feareth, as he saith, the 
suppression of his house ; which, though he will be con- 
formable in all points to the King’s highness’ pleasure and 
yours, once known, as both I advertised him, and also his 
bounden duty is to be ; yet nevertheless, if he thought his 
enterprise would not be mistaken, nor turn to any dis- 
pleasure, he would be an humble suitor to your lordship, 
and, by the same, to the King’s good grace, for the 
upstanding of his foresaid house, and continuance of 
the same to many good purposes. Not in monkery; 
he meaneth not so, God forbid! but any other ways 
as should be thought and seem good to the King’s 
majesty ; as to maintain teaching, preaching, study, with 
praying, and, to the which he is much given, good house- 
keeping: for to the virtue of hospitality he hath been 
greatly inclined from his beginning, and is very much 


326 Latimer’s Episcopate 


{ 


commended in these parts for the same. So if five 
hundred marks to the King’s highness, with two hundred 
marks to yourself for your goodwill,* might occasion the 
promotion of his intent, at least way for the time of his 
life, he doubteth not to make his friends for the same, if 
so little could bring so much to pass. The man is old, 
a good housekeeper, feedeth many, and that daily ; for 
the country is poor and full of penury. And alas! my 
good lord, shall we not see two or three’ [abbeys] ‘in 
every shire changed to such remedy? Thus, too, this 
honest man’s importunity hath brought me beyond my 
duty ; saving for the confidence and trust that I have 
always in your benignity. As he hath knowledge from 
you, so he will prepare for you, ever obedient to your 
advertisement. Sir William Kingston’ [Lieutenant of the 
Tower | ‘can make report of the man. 

‘God prosper you to the uttering of all hollow hearts ! 
Blessed be the God of England, that worketh all, whose 
instrument you be! I heard you say once, after you had 
seen that furious invective of Cardinal Pole’ [against the 
King], ‘that you would make him to eat his own heart, 
which you have now, I trow, brought to pass; for he must 
now eat his own heart, and be as heartless as he is 
graceless. 

‘December 13’ [1538]. ‘Hartlebury.’ 


The allusion to Cardinal Pole at the close of this letter 
reminds us of another phase in the shifting and perplexed 
political situation of the time. Henry had been, all the 
year, soliciting a matrimonial alliance with the Emperor 
‘ or the King of France, and they had amused him with 
. hollow negotiations which in the end proved fruitless. 
Nothing could have been more favourable to the interests 
of the Romish party in England than such an alliance ; 


* We see here something of the base measures connected with the 
suppression of the monasteries. The money here offered was, of 
course, a bribe. ? Cotton MSS., Cleopatra, E. iv. 264. 


h a pia 
Ee Ul lOO b 


Henry Excommunicated 327 


but, strange to say, its most violent opponents were the 
Pope and Cardinal Pole. With that short-sighted desire 
of revenge which had so often in those days seduced the 
Court of Rome from its usual wary policy, the Pope sent 
the Cardinal into Spain to stimulate the Emperor to 
invade England; and with futile rage he discharged 
against Henry that once-dreaded thunderbolt of excom- 
munication which had been held in terrorem over his 
head since 1535. Henry, on his part, made an emphatic 
practical reply: he ordered the brothers and friends of 
Pole to be arrested and committed to the Tower, there to 
remain till the peers could be summoned to try them for 
treason. This was doubtless the step alluded to by Latimer, 
as what was likely to make Pole eat his own heart. 
Latimer was now preparing to spend his fourth Christ- 
mas at Hartlebury, little dreaming that it was to be the 
last of his episcopate. His customary audit was of course 
held at Christmas, and he, fortunately, felt impelled to 
write to Cromwell the exact state of his affairs. This 
curious document furnishes us with a full account of his 
stewardship so far as money matters are concerned, 
and affords us an interesting glimpse into the domestic 
economy of an episcopal palace in the sixteenth century. 


‘S1r, to be short with you, and not to trouble you, this 
is now my state, and in this condition Iam. All manner 
of my receipts, since I was bishop, amounts to four 
thousand poundsand upward. My first-fruits, reparations’ 
[repairs], ‘and solutions of my debts amounts to just 
seventeen hundred pounds, there remaineth in ready 
money now at my last audit, ending upon Christmas 
even’s even, nine score pounds; of the which five score 
pound and five is payable forth withal, for my tenths of 
this year, other twenty goeth to my new year’s gift, and so 


* The reader may be again reminded that the present value of all the 
sums here mentioned is found by multiplying by fifteen. 


328 Latimer’s Episcopate 


have I left to myself, to keep my Christmas withal, and to 
come up withal’ [to London] ‘three score pounds. All © 
the rest is spent: if well, that is my duty; if otherwise, 
that is my folly. As any man may complain, I must make © 
answer ; else, God knoweth all. It is spent, I say, saving © 
that I have provision for household, in wheat, malt, beeves — 
and muttons, as much as would sustain my house this half- _ 
year and more, if I should not go forth of my diocese: — 
and in this standeth much the stay of my house; for lam _ 
more inclined to feed many grossly and necessarily’ [with 
the mere necessaries of life], ‘than a few deliciously and 
voluptuously. As for plate and hangings, hath not cost 
me twenty shillings’ les this bishop is not fond of pomp.] — 
‘In plate, my new year’s gifts doth my need, with glass 
and byrral ; and I delight more to feed hungry bellies than : 
to clothe dead walls. Thus it is, my lord, therefore you ~ - 
may me credit; and as you have been always my good — 
lord, so I desire you to continue, and to take this rude — 
signification of my condition for a new year’s gift,and a 
poor token of my good will toward you, for this time. — 
Another year and I live’ [and continue bishop], ‘it shall 
be better; for I thank my Lord God, I am within forty — 
pounds out of debt, which doth lighten my heart not a — 
little.t And Sonia cometh on my half-year’s rent ; and — 
then I shall be afloat again, and clean out of debt. 

Sir, my brother and Suffragan, the Prior of Worcester”? — 
[Holbeach, suffragan Bishop of Bristol], ‘is your orator, — 
and beadsman, if it be your pleasure that he shall preach — 
before the King’s highness, this Lent coming; his day © 
once appointed, he will be at your commandment, but now 
it were time to know his day. 

‘Sub natalem Christi’ [Dec. 24,1538]. At Hartiebury.’? — 

Notwithstanding his large revenues, therefore, Latimer 


* Latimer’s debts were probably connected with his elevation to ‘the 
bishopric and with unavoidable expenses incident to his office. 
2 State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, C. 3. 21. 


Pe Ar a Se 


Anne of Cleves 329 


had not accumulated any fortune during his episcopate. 
He had, at his elevation, been called upon to pay large 
sums as first-fruits and for dilapidations, and at Christmas, 
1538, he had not yet entirely repaid the debts thereby 
incurred. His Lady-day rents would set him free from 
debt, without, however, leaving him any considerable 
surplus; and at the period of his resignation he was 
probably left almost moneyless, not having profited in 
any pecuniary sense by his four years’ tenure of his 
wealthy See. 

The year 1539, destined to prove for a time so hostile 
to the interests of the Reformation, and to cut short 
prematurely Latimer’s career of public usefulness, seemed 
to promise favourably at its commencement. The mis- 
judged policy of the Court of Rome, and the bad faith 
of the Emperor Charles, had produced a reaction in 
Henry’s mind; and he made overtures for resuming 
negotiations with the German Protestants. Envoys were 
accordingly sent over to Germany, to the Elector of 
Saxony, and the Landgrave of Hesse, with assurances of 
Henry’s continued goodwill and earnest desire for pro- 
moting the purity of the Churches. Along with this 
negotiation for a fresh alliance between the Church of 
England and the German Reformers, there was now 
prosecuted for the first time a definite proposal for a 
marriage between Henry and one of the Protestant 
Princesses. Cromwell, it is usually said, though not upon 
sufficient authority, suggested to Henry that Anne, second 
daughter of the Duke of Cleves, was in beauty and virtue, 
worthy to be Queen of England. There can be no doubt 
that, from whatever quarter the proposal for this marriage 
came, it would be hailed with satisfaction by the English 
Protestants : and it is certain that by the middle of March, 
Henry was actively prosecuting his suit, and that he was 
even then anxiously waiting for some authentic portrait 


* Strype, Eccl. Mem. vol. i. pt. 2. p. 395. 


330 Latimer’s Episcopate 


which might enable him with his own eyes to judge of the 
charms of a princess who was reported to be ‘as well for 
the beauty of the face as for the whole body, above all 
other ladies excellent.’? 

To the other negotiation, for a closer alliance between 
the Churches, Henry had interposed an additional obstacle 
by a proclamation issued on February 26, 1539, in which 
he again charged all his loving subjects to observe and 
keep the ancient ceremonies. All bishops, deans, curates, 
and preachers were carefully to explain the true use of the 
ceremonies ; that water was sprinkled every Sunday to 
remind them of their baptism, and the sprinkling of the 
blood of Christ for their redemption on the cross; that 
giving of holy bread reminded them of their unity, that all 
Christian men were one body, just as the bread is composed 
of many grains ; that candles were carried at Candlemas to 
remind them of Christ, the true light of the world; that 
the giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday reminded them that 
men are but dust and ashes, and that penance was suitable 
in Lent ; that the palms on Palm Sunday should bring to 
mind Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem; that creeping 
to the cross on Good Friday taught them to humble them- 
selves before the cross. These ceremonies, it was added 
by way of doctrinal safeguard, were not the workers of our 
salvation, but only outward signs whereby men remembered 
Christ and His work and passion, whence alone all good 
men received salvation : still all men were to observe them, 
until they were altered or abolished. No one was to 
despise them; no one was to use them superstitiously.? 
In other words, ceremonies which, all experience showed, 
had invariably led to superstition, especially among the 
more ignorant, were rigorously enjoined ; and Henry was 
sanguine enough to hope that a bare caution, or admonitory 
explanation, given often by a superstitious priest, would 


* Cotton MSS., Vifellius ; quoted in Anderson’s Annals, vol. ii. p. 51. 
2 Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iii. p. 842: from Cotton MSS., Titus. 


Negotiations with Germany 331 


sufficiently guard his subjects against the imminent danger 
of relapsing into their old ignorance and superstition. 

In resuming their negotiations, the German commis- 
sioners remonstrated courteously but firmly with Henry 
against this impolitic and unscriptural ‘ confirmation of 
certain vicious or unprofitable rites.’ They reminded him 
that these ceremonies were inconsistent with the articles 
of the common creed to which both Churches assented, 
that they offended the light of the Gospel, that they 
deterred the weak from the pure doctrine, and pro- 
posed other worship than that delivered by God* 
Melanchthon also wrote and warned him that the con- 
tinued use of these ceremonies was likely to restore 
again the reverence for the Pope, by whose authority they 
had been originally introduced into the Church; and 
recommended that instead of compelling their use, Henry 
should allow liberty of opinion and action in matters that 
were non-essential ; adding a special condemnation of 
the royal injunctions on the celibacy of the clergy, as 
quite certain to corrupt public morals.2_ Cromwell also, as 
far as he dared,—for the presence of Gardiner rendered 
him very cautious,—suggested to his sovereign that the 
recommendations of the Germans were weighty and just.3 

Henry’s chief object in issuing his injunctions and pro- 
clamations, had always been to put an end to the great 
division of opinion on religious matters which agitated the 
minds of his subjects, and to produce concord and agree- 
ment. But it need not be said, that the methods he 
adopted to promote unity only increased division ; 
religious controversy waxed fiercer than ever ; the cere- 
monies, the celibacy of the clergy, and the real presence 
in the Holy Communion, being the chief points on which 
men were divided from each other. Unfortunately, 


* Elector of Saxony’s letter to Henry, April 4: Strype, Eccl. Mem., 
vol. i. pt. 2, 399. 

? Melanchthon to Henry, April 1: Burnet, vol. iv. p. 347. 

3 Cromwell, to Henry, April 23 : Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. i. pt. 2, 400. 


332 Latimer’s Episcopate 


nothing could move Henry from the position he had taken _ 
up; all the arguments that were brought to bear 
against him could not convince him ; and this part of the — 
negotiations, which might have been productive of innu- 
merable blessings to England, speedily proved utterly 
abortive. The other part of the negotiations went on 
more prosperously, and was at last brought to a conclusion ; 
but, unhappily, their success proved almost as disastrous to 
the English Reformers in this matrimonial alliance, as 
their failure in the hopes of a religious union, "i 

But before prosecuting this subject further, it will be — 
necessary to return to Latimer, and resume his history, — 
illustrating it with the remaining letters to Cromwell, which — 
unhappily will soon begin to fail us. Latimer seems tohave — 
remained at Hartlebury, till he was summoned to the Par- 
liament in London, busied as before with the many prac- 
tical details of his diocese, and occasionally compelled to 
ask advice from Cromwell. In the middle of January, he — 
writes as follows on a variety of subjects :— 


‘Sir, I doubt not but the King’s highness, of his 
gracious and accustomable goodness, will remember his 
poor subjects now in Lent as touching white meat, of 
the which I now motion unto your lordship, to the 
intent it may come betime among them ; for heretofore 
it hath been Midlent as ever it hath come to the borders 
of the realm.’ [Lent began this year on February 19.]* 
‘This Master Lucy’ [bearer of the letter] ‘shall be now 
a great piece of my letters unto you: I trust you will give 
to him the hearing as you may have leisure. 

‘Sir, I like not those honey-mouthed men, when I do 
see no acts nor deeds according to their words. Master — 
Anthony Barker’ [of whom we heard in October, 1537] 
‘had never had the wardenship of Stratford’ [collegiate — 
church] ‘at my hands, saving at contemplation of your 


® According to Fowe, vol. v. p. 384, it was Cromwell who had obtained 
permission for the poor to eat eggs and white meat in Lent, 


‘The Old Trade’ 333 


lordship’s letter. .I am sure your lordship can bolt out 
what should be meant by such instructions as Master 
Anthony Barker gave to his parish priest, whose voluntary 
confession without any provocation of me, I do send unto 
your lordship, written with his own hand, his own name 
subscribed : Mr. Lucy with all my house being at the pub- 
lishing of the same." 

‘Sir, I ascertain’ [assure] ‘ you before God, that I never 
presented any matter unto you, of any malice or ill-will to 
any person, but only of good zeal to the truth and dis- 
charging of my duty. And as for the Arches’ [the Court 
of Arches], ‘I could have had fewer matters there, with 
more money in my purse by not a little, if I would 
have followed the old trade in selling of sin, and not doing 
of my duty. 

‘I do send unto your lordship also a copy of Master 
Anthony Barker’s parish priest’s recantation or revocation, 
which shall be done up on Sunday next, at Stratford, one 
of my chaplains being there to preach and he (? hear) the 
same. 

‘Sir, our master sheriff’ [Sir Gilbert Talbot] ‘hath 
kept such a sessions at Worcester, as hath not been seen 
here these many years. Sir, to be master of the game in 
the forest of Fecknam, is to be leader of many men. It 
were meet that he should be leader of many men, should 
have a true faithful heart to his sovereign lord. In that 
point you know our sheriff : he dwelleth within four miles 
of Fecknam. January 17, Hartlebury.’ ? 


The very next day Latimer despatched another letter to 
Cromwell by the hand of one of the King’s servants. 


‘Sir, I pray you give this bearer, my fellow Moore, the 
King’s servant, the hearing of a matter which I have 


* This confession is not now amongst Latimer’s papers in the State 
Paper Office. 


? State Paper Office : Chapter House Papers, C. 3. 21, p. 526. 


334 Latimer’s Episcopate 


charged him to open to your lordship, even as he did — 
open it to me. Your lordship shall perceive what convey- — 


ance there is by night. It were meet to know to what 


purpose. If your lordship return my fellow, with your — 


letters of commission to master sheriff and me, to examine 
the parties, we shall lack no goodwill to do our best. 
Some words, meseemeth, soundeth not well toward the 
King’ [1.e., were treasonable]. ‘I refer all to your high 
wisdom. This bearer, Moore, seemeth to me an honest 
man: one word of your lordship’s mouth might occasion 
Master Captain? to be his good master, and something 
better than he is.’ [get him some advancement], ‘as this 
man doth say. God forbid that this poor man should 


forego his right! my council hath seen his writings’ - 


[title deeds, etc.], ‘and they think that he is debarred 
of right. Your good lordship may ease all with one 
word. It hangeth betwixt Sir John Ashley and him. 

‘Sir, Mr. Tracy, your lordship doth know what manner 
of man he is ; I would wish there were many of that sort. 
He had a lease of the demesnes of Winchcombe’ [abbey], 
‘as other more had. The others have theirs renewed 
without a condition ; if you would of your goodness write 
to the abbot and convent, that he might have his renewed 
again, without a condition, your lordship should do an act 
not unworthy yourself. He is given to good hospitality, 
and hath need of such things for the maintenance of the 
same : and he is always ready to serve the King in com- 
missions and other ways, with most hearty fare according 
to his duty, letting for no costs nor charge at any time. 


‘Sir, I know that I am a bold fool: but till you rebuke 


me for the same, I must needs be malapert with you for 
such honest men. God be with you, and I pray God 
preserve you ad promotionem bonorum, vindictam malorum’ 


The word is not easily decipherable, and may be a proper name, 
It has been suggested that it was Wingfield, captain of the royal guard, 
that was meant here. 


——?—  e 


Latimer and the Swiss 335 


[for the promotion of good men, the punishment of bad]. 
‘January 18, Hartlebury.’* 


Of Latimer’s proceedings, in the months of February and 
March, no record whatever exists ; we are left to suppose 
that these months were filled with the same cares and 
varied anxieties which he has himself so well portrayed for 
us in his interesting correspondence with Cromwell. They 
were the last months spent in his pleasant country 
residence, the last months of freedom and public usefulness 
that he was to enjoy while Henry filled the throne. The 
controversies that were agitating the public mind were of 
course profoundly interesting to him ; and were discussed 
by him and his chaplains, we have little doubt, with eager- 
ness not unmingled with anxiety. Opposed as he was to 
changes, and firmly as he still adhered to the doctrine of 
transubstantiation, no one knew better the danger of 
encouraging superstition, by retaining practices which had 
so often been abused ; and no one regretted more than he 
that mistaken piety which preferred what was frequently 
‘an unholy and unchaste chastity to chaste and holy 
matrimony.’ One solitary positive notice of him during 
these months has been preserved. John Butler and three 
other pious English youths, writing a conjoint letter to 
Bullinger and Bibliander, on March 8, incidentally state 
that a letter from Bibliander, one of the most learned of 
the Swiss divines, had been delivered to the Bishop of 
Worcester, and that he would probably send an answer.? 
Whether Latimer replied or not is uncertain ; none of his 
letters to the Swiss reformers have been preserved ; but it 
is interesting to know that he was thus early in communi- 
cation with the pious and learned men of the Continent : 
he needed this intercourse with other more logical minds, 
in order to give greater maturity and precision to his own 
theological opinions. 


* State Paper Office : ee House Papers, C. 3. 21. p. 502. 
? Zurich Letters, vol. ii. p. 626. 


336 Latimer’s Episcopate 


Early in March summonses were issued for the me 


nearly three years ; and towards the close of the mo 
Latimer would be commencing his preparations for 
last visit to London as Bishop. Before leaving, or perh 
on his way, he had gone to Sutton Park, near Tenb 
the seat of his friend Richard Acton, who had ma 
the niece of Humphrey Monmouth, and there he wro 
his next letter to Cromwell, referring for the last tim 
the conduct of Mr. Wattwood, of whom we have so of 
heard him make grievous complaints, but who had now 
wonderfully reformed. 


‘Sir, You be indeed scius artifex’ [a skilful workman], 
‘and hath a good hand to renew old bottles, and to polist 
them and make them apt ae receive new wine. I pray 
you, keep your hand in use’ [in practice], ‘and to 


intent your lordship may perceive what a work you have 


you Mr. Bennett’s letter, my chaniaee testifying wha % 
good change and renovation he perceiveth in him, of 4 


State Paper Office: eet House Papers, C. 3. 21. p. 416. The 
letter from Bennet is enclosed, and states that Wattwood was now ; 


clergy at Warwick Church, ‘setting forth and following’ the Kins 
injunctions and Latimer’s with all diligence ; in short he had od 
quite an exemplary personage, deserving of being furthered in allt 
lawful suits. 


Celibacy of the Clergy 337 


be Latimer’s way of spelling Stroudend, in Painswick, 
Gloucestershire, a manor belonging to Cromwell; but 
which may also be, with perhaps greater probability, taken 
to mean Strond, the official residence of Latimer in 
London. 


‘Str. As touching you wot what, I have written again, 
guessing at your advice ; I trust not far wide. But yet 
pity it is to see God so dishonoured, and no remedy 
provided, at leastway that God hath provided ; not free 
to be used, but the vengeance of God more and mcre to 
be provoked, when comperites’ [revelations, official dis- 
closures] ‘doth shew what fedities’ [base practices] ‘ doth 
grow. Now, sir, if you be listy to hear of Furnes fools’ 
[fools at Furness in Lancashire], ‘this simple priest can 
tell you the state of those parts; he hath come far to 
shew you his grief ; a world to know how pardoners doth 
prate on the borders of the realm. If you help not that 
men of both learning and judgment be resident there, 
they shall perish in their ignorance. 

‘God send you well again to us, for without you we 
shall make no end. Postridie Benedicti, at Strownd.’ 


[April 15, 1539.]? 


The subject so obscurely alluded to in this letter, seems 
in all probability to have been that which the German 
Commissioners with Melanchthon and Cranmer were all 
so eagerly discussing, namely, Henry’s apparent determi- 
nation to enforce the celibacy of the clergy. For several 
years this had been practically in abeyance, and many 
priests had married ; Cranmer himself was at the timea 
married man ; and Henry’s determination, as set forth in 
his injunctions, to punish all married clergy, had occasioned 


t The North was still much inclined to Popery : and just at this time 
satirical ballads against Henry were freely circulating there to his 
great annoyance.—State Pagers, v. 145. 

2 State Paper Office: Chapter House Papers, C. 3. 21. p. 494: in 
April, 1539, Cromwell was ill with ague. Strype, vol. i. pt. 2, 404. 


22 


‘- 
~ , 
: 


338 Latimer’s Episcopate 


the utmost consternation amongst the Reformers both ir 1 
England and Germany. To enforce celibacy, as ox. 
perience had abundantly shown, was to expose the clergy 
to temptations which all could not withstand ; temptakinll 
for which God had indeed provided a remedy in marriage, 
but for which no other remedy could be provided but — 
such as would, in Latimer’s words, ‘more and more 
provoke the vengeance of God.’ It was feared that the — 
coming Parliament might only give additional strength to 
the royal injunctions on this point, and in spite of he 
many disclosures of monastic and clerical immorality, 
might subject the clergy to a bondage which was sure to” 
issue in the dishonouring of God. This, therefore, it is 
conjectured, was the subject on which Latimer and 
Cromwell had already been communicating with each 
other, and to which this somewhat obscure letter refers. 

The only remaining letter of Latimer to Cromwell” 
belongs manifestly to the same period, and may be given 7 
here, so as not to interrupt the continuity of the succeeding 
part of the biography. 


“Sir, I have to thank your good lordship for many 
things ; but I will not now trouble your better business 
therewith, but shall pray to God to reward you for a lL 
together. And now, sir, your good lordship hath beg 
right graciously with the school of Gloucester? ; if of youl i 
goodness you would now make an end, your perseveuall e 
cannot be unrewarded. If the King’s highness doth 
to sell of such lands as hath been belonging to mona hs 
Lady Cooke, foundress of the school, would give afte: 
twenty years’ purchase for a parcel whick lieth near unto” 
the town, and was belonging to Llanthony’ [abbey ic 
‘This bill enclosed doth specify the value, and I i sen a 
this bearer, Mr. Garrett,? my chaplain, to speak with Lady 


The Crypt Grammar School. 
? We have heard of him before at Oxford, and shall see him age 


Celibacy of the Clergy 339 


Cooke, and to know further of the same, and to certify 
your lordship of the same. But I refer all to your known 
both wisdom and goodness; and upon your pleasure 
known herein Lady Cooke shall make ready thereunto. 

‘As to my nurse’ [old Mrs. Statham], ‘I say no more ; 
but if your good lordship do remember her friendly, she 
both will and shall remember your good lordship again 
accordingly. But I will go no further, neither in this 
suit, nor yet in no other, but as I shall perceive your 
lordship agreeable to hear the same. Thus God preserve 
you in long life to the finishing of many things well begun, 
and to the performance of many things yet imperfect.’ * 

With this letter, which may be referred in all pro- 
bability to April or May, 1539, Latimer’s extant corre- 
spondence closes, and we have to pursue our narrative 
hereafter without that aid which has been for some years 
of his life so invaluable. 

In those days Parliament never assembled merely as a 
matter of course, but only for the despatch of business of 
serious importance. Both the great religious parties 
looked forward to the legislation of the coming Par- 
liament with the greatest interest ; the Reformers were 
anxious to remove many of the obnoxious ceremonies, to 
restore to the clergy the liberty of marriage, and in 
general to break down as far as possible the remaining 
peculiarities that separated the Church of England from 
the Continental Protestants; the Romish party were 
equally determined to retain what yet survived of the old 
faith and the old traditions, as the only link that associated 
them with that past to which they looked back with such 
fond regret, and the only possible hope of the restoration 
of England to its former condition. All parties, therefore, 

* State Paper Office: Chapter House Pagers, C. 3. 21, p. 528: the 
letter referred to is also preserved, setting forth the lady’s desire to 
purchase ‘from our sovereign lord the King a farm belonging to the 


priory of Llanthony, lately surrendered,’ in order to endow the free 
school in Gloucester, in accordance with her husband’s will. 


340 Latimer’s Episcopate 


were animated with the resolution of men who knew that 
they were to join in mortal strife for objects of the 
highest moment, who felt that their faith, and perhaps 
their lives, would be influenced by the restilt of thei 
deliberations. 
Parliament assembled on Monday, April 28, and Con n= 
vocation met in St. Paul’s on Friday, May 2. The great 
object in which Henry wished them to co-operate with 
him was still the same that he had been prosecuting for so 
many years, the discovery of some method for securing 
unity of opinion in religious matters: a noble obje 
indeed, though Henry did not pursue it very wisely ; 
devout aim, though never very easy of accomplishment, 
and least of all in such days of change and excitement. 
In spite of articles and injunctions, carefully framed to 
promote religious unity, Henry had found to his mortifi-_ 
cation that division and discord prevailed among his" 
subjects as extensively as ever. There were appara y 
three great religious parties in the nation. : 
On the one extreme was the old Popish party, 
utterly disapproved of all the steps that had been 
since the royal divorce was first mooted, in 1526 ; a par 
well described by Henry as ‘by their preachings and 
teachings minded craftily to restore in this realm the old 
devotion to the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome, 
the hypocrite’s religion, superstitions, pilgrimages, idolat: 
and other evil and naughty ceremonies and dreams, just 
and lawfully abolished and taken away by author 
God’s word. ’* 
On the other extreme was a mixed party, includal 
the more advanced Reformers; those who were st 
Sacramentaries, in the phraseology of that age, as we 
the Anabaptists and others who maintained extr 
opinions on theological and political subjects; a L 


* Proclamation for an Uniformity in Religion, issued in 1539, im 
Strype. Eccl. Mem., vol.i pt. ii. No, r10. From Cleopatra. E.V. 


A Great Aim 341 


described by Henry, not very justly, as ‘ wrestling and 
interpreting Holy Scriptures, so as to subvert and over- 
turn the sacraments of the Holy Church’ [in the Romish 
sense], ‘the power and authority of princes and magis- 
trates, and, generally, all laws and common justice, and 
the good and laudable ordinances and ceremonies neces- 
sary and convenient to be used and continued in this 
realm.’ 

And between these extreme parties moved a large and 
miscellaneous body, including the great majority of the 
population ; a body that had hitherto followed Henry’s 
lead, and was nominally one, but which, embracing as 
it did Latimer and Cranmer on the one side, Gardiner 
and Tunstal on the other, had no real unity of belief or 
purpose, and was daily manifesting imminent symptoms 
of a tendency to be resolved into two opposite factions, 
which would naturally ally themselves with one or other 
of the extreme parties. 

To guide a nation, torn by such wide divergence of 
opinion in religion, and to mould all parties into one 
common faith and worship, was no easy task. Modern 
rulers have long abandoned it as impracticable, and, 
perhaps, even sinful; but Henry deemed it the most 
important ‘ part of his kingly office and charge, to reduce 
the people, committed by God to his charge, to unity 
of opinion,’ and he ‘ daily, painfully, studied and devised 
means for accomplishing it. Hitherto he had not, 
indeed, been very successful, but he did not yet despair 
of discovering some articles of agreement by which his 
great object might at length be accomplished. 

On May 5, therefore, exactly a week after the reassem- 
bling of Parliament, it was proposed that a Committee of 
nine, chosen from the opposite parties, should meet in St. 
Paul’s, and, after mature discussion, devise some common 
bond of unity and religious harmony. On the one side 
were Cromwell, Cranmer, Latimer, and Goodrich (Bishop 


342 Latimer’s Eptscopate 


of Ely) ; on the other, Lee (Archbishop of York), Tunstal, 
Aldrich, Clark, and Salcot (Bishops of Carlisle, Bath and — 
Bangor). The debates of the Commissioners are lost; — 
but the preponderance of ability, from the composition — 
of the commission, would naturally be on the side of the © 
party in favour of Reformation ; while their opponents, — 
by way of counterbalance, had a numerical majority. 

The result was what might have been anticipated; on ~ 
every subject discussed the Commissioners were divided — 
in opinion, and it soon became evident that from them no ~ 
articles of agreement could possibly emanate. After a — 
fortnight thus spent in debate, without any hope of promo- 
ting union, Henry removed the question to the decision of — 
another tribunal. Cromwell’s influence was somewhat on — 
the wane, and the Duke of Norfolk was commissioned to — 
ask the opinion of the House of Lords on six important — 
topics, on which differences most widely prevailed, 
These six topics related to—the manner of the presence 
of Christ in the sacrament, communion in one kind, the — 
benefit of private masses, celibacy of the clergy, auricular — 
confession, and the continued obligation of monastic vows; — 
subjects evidently of prime consequence, constituting then — 
as now some of the most salient differences between the 
Reformed Church and the Church of Rome. The debates — 
were long and earnest; Henry himself, always zealously — 
sharing in a theological controversy, came to the House, * 
and joined in the discussions. Latimer, Shaxton, and — 
others advocated the views which the Reformers were 
all beginning to entertain on the points proposed, while — 
Gardiner, Lee, Tunstal, and Stokesley maintained the old 
teaching of the Church. 

There was no doubt of the conclusion at which Henry 
wished them to arrive, and it was clear to all that the King 
was determined to carry his point; yet, when every — 
other voice was silenced, Cranmer continued to argue — 

* Henry was present May 19 and May 21.—Lords’ Fournals. 


‘The Bloody Statute’ 343 


and protest, and to cite Scripture and the Fathers 
against the royal measures. The nobles, however, to a 
man, with that inexplicable tameness which characterised 
their proceedings during this reign, acquiesced in Henry’s 
wishes ; the Commons, too, though with some greater 
show of opposition (one of the members in particular, 
Thomas Brook, arguing so ably against it, that Cromwell 
entreated him to desist, unless he wished to be hanged or 
burned),* at last passed the Bill, and on June 28 it 
received the royal assent, and became part of the law of 
the land; entitled, in the Statute-Book, ‘An Act for 
abolishing diversity of opinions’ (31 Henry VIII. c. 14), 
but better known to the English people as ‘The Bloody 
Statute,’ or, ‘The whip with six cords.’ 

The passing of this famous Act was unquestionably a 
serious discouragement to the great Protestant party ; 
and as it speedily filled the jails and sent fresh victims to 
Smithfield, ? it cannot be considered as an effectual device 
for “securing unity of opinion, and increasing love and 
charity among the people.” We shall again return to the 
‘Bloody Statute’; meantime, it may here be noticed 
that the Romish party did not escape without some 
defeats to tarnish the glory of their great triumph. For 
the Parliament, completing the legislation of former years, 
passed an Act for formally vesting in the Crown the 
property of all monastic establishments which had been, 
or might hereafter be, suppressed. No very valid reasons 
were assigned for a measure so sweeping, though it was 
evidently a subject admitting of much argument on both 
sides. Latimer’s views, on this matter of retaining 
monasteries, we have already repeatedly seen ; Cranmer, 
however, was decidedly in favour of sweeping them all 


* See Brook’s speech in Fowe, vol. v. p. 503 ; well worth reading. 

2 Twenty-eight persons in all were burned between this date and 
Henry’s death, and not all of these under the Articles, or, perhaps, 
many. See Maitland, Reformation Essay, xii. 


344 Latimer’s Episcopate 


than the imperative necessity of replenishing his exha 
treasury. Property, of an enormous annual value, 
gether with jewels, gold and silver plate, and oth 
valuables, estimated to amount to nearly three millions” 
of our money, was thus transferred to the royal coffers ; 
and, in return, Henry undertook to erect and endow 
thirteen additional bishoprics, and to relieve his subjects 
in all time to come, from subsidies and other burdens. 
His promises were very indifferently kept ; the treasures — 


a year, Parliament was solicited for larger grants of money o 
than had ever been asked before. z 


that the King was ‘pleased and contented, that such as 
could read might read the Scriptures in the English 


presented to Convocation ie the Romish party, with ae 
hope of nen all that was still left of the ancient bE 


and was aac. ¢ 
To return to the ‘Six Articles’ ; they were brie as 

follows :— 
* See his arguments in the Homily on Good Works. 


The Six Articles 345 


1. ‘In the sacrament of the altar, after the consecration, 
there remains no substance of bread and wine, but under 
the form of bread and wine there is present the natural 
body and blood of Jesus Christ, conceived of the Virgin 
Mary. | 

2. ‘Communion in both kinds, is not necessary to salva- 
tion by the law of God. 

3. ‘Priests, after being ordained, may not marry by the 
law of God. 

4. ‘Vows of chastity ought to be observed by the law of 
God. 

5. ‘Private masses, as agreeable to God’s law, and of 
benefit to men, ought to be retained. 

6. ‘ Auricular confession is expedient and necessary.’ 

The ‘Articles’ were enforced by a bill of penalties of a 
very sanguinary character. Any one who denied or dis- 
puted against the first article, was to be burned as a 
heretic ; and by an unprecedented piece of cruelty, no 
loophole of escape by abjuration was to be permitted. 
Any one who opposed the other articles, as also any priest, 
monk, or nun, who married, was to be adjudged a felon, 
and to lose life and forfeit goods to the King; and all 
existing marriages of priests, monks, or nuns were declared 
void, and were to be dissolved. That there might be no 
remissness in enforcing these severe penalties, a commis- 
sion was to be appointed in every county to inquire into 
all emerging cases of heresy under the Act, and to be 
armed with full authority to try and sentence heretics, 
according to due legal formality It was at first intended 
that the penalties should come into operation on Mid- 
summer Day, but a respite was granted till July 12.7 

Latimer had been present during the whole of the 
debates, and felt, of course, the deepest interest in the 
discussion. The first article, indeed, still formed part of 
his own creed; he had never yet dreamed of denying the 


* Lords’ Fournals, 


346 Latimer’s Episcopate 


real presence ; but the remaining five were the very points 
on which he, as well as Cranmer and the other Reformers, 
were most anxious to secure liberty of thought and action 
in the Church of England, in order to render an alliance 
possible with the Lutheran Churches abroad. Great, 
therefore, must have been Latimer’s disappointment at 
the enacting of a statute which seemed to place an 
insurmountable barrier against all prospect of a fu’ 
union between the Reformed Churches of England and 
Germany. His distress was augmented by the addition to 
the statute of the sanguinary Bill of Pains and Penalties. 

For three days after this Bill passed the House of Lords 
Latimer was absent ;* unable to attend, probably, fro m 
excessive grief and anxiety about his future conduct. 
a private individual, he had nothing to fear from the 
operation of the statute ; he was not likely to controvert 
the first article ; he was not married, and was therefore 
not affected by the laws against married priests ; and th 
statute did not compel him to teach in accordance wi 
the articles, but simply not to oppose or deny them. Had 
he been merely a clergyman, therefore, there would hav e 
been no difficulty in shaping his course ; but he was a 
bishop ; he would be called upon to preside in commis- 
sions for the trial of offenders under the statute ; he might 
have to condemn and to hand over to the secular arm: 
condign punishment men whom he respected and love 
men whose only fault was that they had openly proclaim 
opinions which he himself also entertained. Thus his 
position had become a very embarrassing one; and he 
must have been grievously perplexed what comin 
follow. He had not much time for deliberation ; on June 
14, the Bill of Pains and Penalties was read the hi 
time in the Lords’; within a month it would come : 
operation, and he must therefore decide at once how i 
became him to act. 


 Viz., June 17, 18, 19, Lords’ Fournals. 


Reasons for Resignation 347 


Unquestionably his first wish would be to resign his 
bishopric, and retire to private life. Many considerations 
would counsel this step. His health was infirm ; his 
talents fitted him better for the work of a preacher than 
for the position of a ruler in the Church; he would 
thereby escape the unpleasant duty of enforcing a law 
which he had opposed ; and he might hope to spend his 
days in peace and pious usefulness, safe from molestation 
under the protection of Cromwell and Cranmer. The 
further consideration, so much insisted upon sometimes 
by Latimer’s enthusiastic admirers, that his resignation 
would be a noble and heroic protest against Henry’s 
conduct, would not, we are convinced, weigh much with 
Latimer himself. Latimer was too practical a man not to 
know that his resignation would be ascribed not to his 
conscience, but to his fears ; and he knew that it would 
certainly be most injurious to that holy cause which he 
had so long and so ably defended. The position of the 
Reformation was bad, but it was not desperate. Henry 
had, indeed, taken a retrograde step, but that step was not 
irrevocable. All the previous progress had been effected 
with Henry’s co-operation and by the aid of his power ; 
it was under his auspices that the Papal Supremacy had 
been renounced, that the religious houses had been 
abolished, that images and relics and many other super- 
stitions had been removed, and above all that the English 
Bible had at last been freely printed and circulated ; and 
though Gardiner’s influence had in the meantime perverted 
him into a wrong course, it was surely not impossible that 
he might still be persuaded to reconsider his policy, and 
to return to the path from which he had deviated. To 
resign, therefore, in such circumstances; to abandon 
Cranmer, already sorely weakened by the death of Fox; 
to retire from the conflict at the very first reverse of 
fortune ; whatever modern declamatory writers may say, 
would be an act of very questionable wisdom or courage. 


348 Latimer’s Episcopate 


It was not required that he should assent to the Act ; 
would his integrity have been impeached by administe 


day without the slightest reflection being cast upon thei 
honesty. He might honestly retain his office ; watching 


using all his influence to oppose the further designs of 
Gardiner’s party ; endeavouring to persuade the King to a 
better mind ; trusting, as Cranmer did, that the great 
advantages still left to them, the priceless blessing of a 
free Bible, and the ordinances of a more-than-half-reformed 
Church, might in time, by God’s help, more than coun er 
balance this unexpected check. : 

These considerations, stigmatised too frequently as 
cowardice and worldly wisdom by men who admire 
impetuosity and scenic display, might well have det 
mined Latimer to retain his bishopric, notwithstandi 
the many anxieties which this statute brought upon hi 
Cranmer and Cromwell, too, would of course join their 
voices to the arguments for retaining the bishopric, and 
counsel him to bow to the storm for a time, in the hope 
that a better day might soon dawn. ¥ 

The Bill finally passed on June 28; on July 1, 
Latimer resigned his bishopric. This step has been 
eulogised in the highest terms of praise ; and invidious 
contrasts have been drawn between the heroism of Latimer 
-and the cowardice of Cranmer. But in truth these” 
panegyrics are groundless ; for Latimer has himself 
explained the precise motive for his resignation, and it 


Cromwell, it seems (offended, probably, because Lati 
would not follow him in his dangerous and crook 
policy), represented to him that it was the King’s wi 
that he should resign? ; and Latimer resigned according 
He may have given some direct offence to Henry by | 

* State Papers, vol. i. p. 845. 


v4 
# plain-spoken opposition to the measure during the debates ; 
“ys but Cromwell had no authority for the statement that he 
made ; and the discovery of his deception would givea 
_ sad blow to the friendship that had so long subsisted 
between him and Latimer. On the whole, therefore, it. 
seems quite certain that Latimer, in spite of his own feel- 
ings, and at the sacrifice of his ease, was willing to retain 
his bishopric, in the hope that he might still be of some 
: service to religion ; but the intimation of Henry’s wish at 
-_ once decided him, and he resigned his office. Such a 
: resignation, of course, wants the air of romantic self- 
sacrifice with which it has so often been invested; but 
truth is better than romance. Perhaps it would have been 
‘ better for himself and for his country had he retained his 
_ bishopric. His absence from the bench was an irreparable 
[ loss ; it silenced for eight years the voice of the most 


be Latimer Resigns 349 


eloquent preacher in England; and this was surely no 
gain to the cause of the Reformation. 

Cranmer’s retention of his office has been stigmatised as 
time-serving ; it was time-serving in a very high and noble 
sense, for it kept him in a position to serve the times: it 
placed him as the champion of the Reformation alone, 
among a host of enemies, for the rest of Henry’s reign, and 
most nobly did he discharge himself of this heavy responsi- 
bility. Latimer has quite sufficient claims upon the 
veneration of all Englishmen without ascribing to him 
virtues that did not belong to him ; and it is best that 
the plain, unvarnished tale of his resignation as it 
actually occurred, should be substituted for the romantic 

_ fiction that has usually usurped its place in his biography. 

-_ When he proceeded to disrobe himself among his 
friends in his chamber, Foxe tells us that as he put off 
his rochet he gave a skip on the floor for joy, ‘ feeling his 
shoulders so light, and being discharged of such a heavy 
burden.’ The anecdote is characteristic, and has all the 


* Foxe, vol. vii. p. 463. 


amy 


sus 


350 Latimer’s Episcopate 


marks of truth ; for whatever might result from his resig. 
nation, it was to him a joyful relief from a heavy burdi 
of responsibility and care. 

With the end of June, 1539, therefore, one important 
part of Latimer’s life terminated for ever ; he was, indeed, 
offered a bishopric after Edward’s accession, but he never 
held that office again. For four years he had presided 
over the spiritual interests of a large and neglected diocese, 
and had shared in the great religious discussions of the 
legislature. He had laboured assiduously to provide for the 
spiritual enlightenment of the many souls of which he had 
the chief cure; he had been unremitting in promoting 
every reform of abuses and superstitions. He had accumu- 
lated no fortune ; he had indulged in no ostentation ; he 
had spent the large revenues of his See in aiding the cause 
of pure religion, and in dispensing simple hospitality 
amongst the poor. Few bishops in his own day or in 
any other have been better able to give a good account 
their stewardship. Even in his short episcopate, too, he 


pilgrimages decried, monkery entirely abolished, the English 
Bible freely circulated, and all men encouraged to read it; 
and if, as his public labours concluded, a dark cloud seemed 
to have settled upon the prosperity of the \Church, there ~ 
was yet much reason for gratitude for the past, and no cau } 
to despair of the future. 7. 

During these important debates in London, which, of 
course, entirely engrossed Latimer’s attention, his dioces oa 
was again the scene of fierce religious excitement. Bristol, — 
true to its reputation, was once more agitated by one of - 
those violent controversies which had so often disturbed — 
Latimer’s peace. George Wishart, the Scotch Reformer, — 
having been compelled to abandon his native country — 
lest his heretical opinions should expose him to punishme at 
had found a refuge in Bristol, act improbably attract 


/ 


Wishart at Bristol ahr 


thither by the belief that he would be secure under the 
patronage of Latimer. He was appointed lecturer iv 
St. Nicholas’ Church,t where Latimer himself had once 
preached with considerable effect, and his eloquence, which 
ata later period so powerfully fascinated the mind of Knox, 
produced a deep impression in Bristol, and revived in full 
strength those flames of religious discord, which, indeed, 
in that zealous population seemed never to die. The city 
was again in a state of uproar bordering on insurrection ; 
and the municipal authorities, anxious to preserve the 
public peace, sent Wishart to prison.? This step, how- 


x Not unnaturally it has been conjectured that he owed this 
appointment to Latimer. Wishart’s name, however, never occurs in 
Latimer’s Register. See Lorimer’s Historical Sketch of the Reforma- 
tion in Scotland. 

2 In the Mayor's calendar of Bristol,— 

‘390 Henry VIII. This year, the 15 May’ [1538], ‘a Scot, named 
George Wysard, set forth his lecture in St. Nicholas’ Church of 
Bristowe, the most blasphemous heresy that ever was herd, openly 
declaring that Christ nother hath nor coulde merit for him nor yet for 
us, which heresy brought many of the commons of this town into a great 
error, and divers of them were persuaded by that heretical lecture to 
heresy. Whereupon the said stiff-necked Scot was accused by Mr. 
John Kerne, Dean of the said diocese of Worcester, and sone after he 
was sent to the most reverent father in God, the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, before whom and others, that is to signify, the Bishops of Bath, Nor- 
wich, and Chichester, with others as doctors ; and he before them was 
examined, convicted, and condemned in and upon the detestable heresy 
above mentioned ; whereupon he was enjoined to bear a faggot in 
St. Nicholas’ Church aforesaid, and the parish of the same, the 13 July 
anno forementioned ; and in Christ Church and parish thereof the 
20 July abovesaid following’ [these were Sundays in 1539], ‘ which 
injunction was duly executed in aforesaid.’ 

Letter from Thomas Jeffryis, Mayor of Bristowe, in the Rolls :-— 

‘Pleaseth it your honourable lordship to be advertised that certain 
accusations are made and had by Sir John Kerell, Dean of Bristowe, 
deputy of the Bishop of Worcester, our ordinary, and by divers others 
inhabitants of Bristowe foresaid, against one George Nischarde, a 
Scottishman born, lately being before your honourable worship. 
Which accusations the said Dean and other inhabitants aforesaid 
have presented before me, the Mayor of Bristowe, and justices of 
peace ; and the same accusations I have received, sending the same 
unto your said honourable lordship ; and furthermore, the Chamberlain 
and the Dean of Bristowe shall signify unto your honourable lordship, 
the very truth in the premises, unto whom we shall desire you to give 
credence. And thus our Lord preserve your honourable lordship in 


- 


352 Latimer’s Episcopate 


ba 


ever, only increased the confusion. Wishart had 
devoted partisans ; threats of violence were adden 
the Mayor in coarse language, which showed that tl 
were already amongst the Reformers men to whom go 
ness was little more than a form of words, which exerted 
no influence in purifying the life ; and the hope was loudly 
expressed that when Cromwell heard of their proceedings, 
or when Latimer returned from London, the magistrates 
would be only too glad to procure immunity by humb: 
submission. Latimer, as we have already seen, did not 
return at all to his diocese, and was thus spared the annoy- 
ance of attempting to restore peace amongst such an 
inflammable population. Wishart, who, if we may trust 
the local calendars, had preached doctrines which we 
plainly heretical and socinian—even going so far as 


and peace was again restored in the excited city, who 
subsequent religious history is no longer associated with 
life of Latimer. 


health and wealth, according unto your own heartiest desire. A 
Brixtowe the ix. day of June, Anno Regis Henrici VIII. xxxi. By m 
Thomas Jeffryis, Mayor of Bristowe. 
t Bristol possesses a series of admirable local chronicles ; and it is 
much to be wished that some competent person would unde 
to compile from these an authentic history of the religious m 
ment in the city in the sixteenth century. Latimer’s connecti 
with Bristol has compelled the present biographer to enter into 
great religious debates which agitated that city, and few subje 
have given him more trouble. On Wishart’s preaching in Bristol, s 
Lorimer, ubi supra, and Sayer’s Memoirs of Bristol ; the coarse lei 
referred to in the text, and which Lorimer has not seen, arein Cleop 
E. v. pp. 389, etc., of the new notation. 


CHAPTER VI 


FROM LATIMER’S RESIGNATION OF HIS BISHOPRIC TO HIS 
RESTORATION TO LIBERTY ON THE ACCESSION OF 
EDWARD VI 


(1539-1547) 


OR the eight years that followed his resignation, the 
history of Latimer’s life is almost a blank. Only the 
scantiest information can be gleaned ; and no consecutive 
narrative of his proceedings during these eight years can 
even be attempted. In the absence, therefore, of any 
materials for a continuous biography, nothing further can 
be done than to interweave with a compendious nar- 
rative of the transactions of the period such brief notices 
of Latimer as have been preserved. 

It was on the first of July that he resigned his bishopric ; 
and on the seventh of the same month the Chapter of 
Worcester petitioned for a royal writ to proceed to the 
election of a successor. Then, if not before, his resig- 
nation would become known to Henry ; and it was at this 
time probably that the interview took place with the 
King in which Latimer learned to his chagrin that 

--Cromwell had deceived him, and that Henry had never 
counselled him to resign. The step, however, was 
irrevocable ; Henry was certainly not the man to entreat 
any one to recall a precipitate action; and Latimer 
would have completely compromised himself by re- 

23 383 


i 


354 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


suming his office. The royal congé d’élire was, therefore, 
issued to the Prior and Chapter of Worcester, and was — 


acted upon by them without delay. Before the end of 
July the election was made, and on August 2, the 


customary writ was granted, requesting Cranmer to 


confirm the election of John Bell to the see of Worcester, 
‘vacant by the voluntary resignation of Hugh Latimer,’ * 


Latimer’s resignation was, of course, displeasing to 


Henry, who considered it a censure of his policy by one 
whom he highly esteemed, and who was equally held in 
reverence by the great body of the people. It was not to 
be expected, therefore, that he should be allowed to 
return undisturbed to private life in the full enjoyment of 
complete personal liberty. He had not, indeed, done 
anything to expose him to the rigour of the law, still 
Henry would not permit him to be at large, and he was 
ordered to be kept in ward in the house of Sampson, 
Bishop of Chichester, no very unpleasant imprisonment, 
as the bishop’s palace lay on the east side of Chancery 
Lane, with a cheerful outlook on Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 
then open ground.?. In other ways, however, Latimer was 
made to feel the inconvenience of the loss of Henry’s 


F 
4 
% 
7 
, 
’ 
.. 
7 
q 
. 
b 
j 
f 


favour. He had, for example, sent his commissary to his — 


diocese to collect the customary ‘ Pentecostal’ which 


should have been paid at the previous Whitsuntide, and 


which amounted to fifty-five pounds, or nearly eight 
hundred pounds of our money. Latimer, who, as we 
have seen, had saved nothing from the revenues of his 
diocese, could ill afford to lose this money; the com- 
missary, however, was not allowed to collect it, for fear of 


exciting a sedition ; 3 and it found its way, doubtless, into 


the all-absorbing coffers of Henry, as the ‘ ultimus heres.’ 
Latimer’s custody in Sampson’s house was not very 


* ‘Per liberam resignationem,’ etc. ; Rymer: liberam is not in the — 


corresponding writ for Shaxton’s successor. 
2 Stow’s Survey of London. 3 Latimer’s Sermons, vol. i, p. 135. 


Latimer in Custody 355 


rigorous ; he was merely deprived of the liberty of going 
abroad, but his friends were not debarred from visiting 
and conversing with him. The chief topic of their con- 
versation we can easily conjecture. His friends were not 
convinced of the propriety of his resignation, and were 
anxious that he should so far submit as to regain his 
liberty. They accused him of affecting singularity, and 
wilfully choosing ‘a way contrary to the King and the 
whole Parliament.’! Latimer, however, was not to be 
persuaded to retrace his steps by such arguments. He 
had been willing to retain his bishopric, and to do his 
duty as well as he could under difficult circumstances ; 
but, having once resigned, his conscience would not allow 
him to make the necessary submission to Henry, or to 
acknowledge the justice of the measure which he had so 
vigorously opposed. He was kept in custody, therefore, 
in Sampson’s house, and remained there, not without 
occasional apprehensions of more serious punishment, till 
the spring of 1540, when his jailor was himself committed 
to the Tower for relieving ‘ traitorous persons.’ 

Returning to the general history of the period, it will 
be remembered that an interval of a fortnight elapsed 
between the enacting of the famous ‘ Bloody Statute,’ and 
the enforcing of it by penalties; and this respite gave 
opportunity to many of the most ardent Reformers to 
make provision for their safety by flight. Then, for the 
first time, England witnessed a great religious emigration ; 
many in various positions in life, but especially young men 
of learning and energy, left a country where they could no 
longer remain without endangering their lives or compro- 
mising their consciences, and found a congenial refuge in 
the Protestant towns of Germany and Switzerland. 
Zurich, Basle, Strasburg, swarmed with these religious 
refugees; the great leaders of the Reformation on the 
Continent, especially those of the Zwinglian school, were 


* Latimer’s Sermons, vol. i. p. 136, 


the English Reformation. a 

The prospects in England were, indeed, gloomy and | 
dispiriting: and pious hearts were grievously exercised — 
with this mysterious arrangement of Divine Providence, | 
or recognised in it the righteous punishment of the past - 
ingratitude and carelessness of the nation. It was thus, — 
for example, that three travellers moralised as they rode — 
homewards through Wales, in the month of August, some ~ 
six weeks after the Act had received the royal sanction :— — 

‘We know not the work or God,’ said George Con- 
stantine, vicar of Llanhuadaine ; ‘if it be His pleasure, it — 
is as easy for Him to overcome by few as with many; — 
but I think, verily, that my Lord Privy Seal’ [Cromwell] © 
‘persuaded my Lord of Canterbury, and that for other — 
considerations than we do know.’? ; 

‘As I can hear,’ remarked one of his companions, ‘my 
Lord Privy Seal is utterly persuaded as the Act is’ — 
[believes it all implicitly]. : 

‘Wonderful are the ways of the Lord,’ Constantine 
rejoined ; ‘ Kings’ hearts are in the hand of God; He 
turneth them as He listeth, How mercifully, “how ; 
plentifully and purely hath God sent His word unto us 
here in England! Again, how unthankfully, how 
rebelliously, how carnally, and unwillingly do we receive 
it! Who is there almost that will have a Bible, but he 
must be compelled thereto! How loath be our priests to. 
teach the commandments, the articles of the faith, and 
the Pater-Noster in English! Again, how uavwiligne bey 
the people to learn it! Yea, they jest at it, calling it the 
new Pater-Noster, and new learning: so that, as help me 
God, if we amend not, I fear we shall be in more bondage 


* Cromwell probably consented to the Articles in the hope of being, 
able to neutralise them through the German marriage. a 


Widespread Indignation 357 


and blindness than ever we were. I pray you, was not one 
of the best preachers in Christendom Bishop of Worcester ? 
(Latimer, namely). And now there is one made that 
never preached that I heard, except it were the Pope’s 
eaws = 

The speaker, it will be seen, took a very gloomy and 
exaggerated view of the religious condition of the people, 
for we know that the Scriptures were eagerly read by 
many thousands ; yet this very exaggeration shows what a 
profound feeling of gloom and disappointment had settled 
on the minds of the adherents of the Reformation in 
England. 

And this feeling of gloomy despondency at home was 
equalled by the indignation of the Reformers abroad, and 
especially of the German Protestants, who had so recently 
hoped for a closer concord in doctrine and worship with 
the Church of England. ‘We are all of us amazed,’ 
writes Bucer to Cranmer,? ‘more than I can express, at 
the sight of those decrees; . . . it is idle to suppose that 
we should not be offended by those most severe decrees.’ 
The Elector of Saxony remonstrated with Henry in 
similar terms of indignant astonishment at the enacting 
of a decree so bitter and sharp, ‘made by the conspiracy 
and craftiness of certain bishops, in whose mind the 
veneration and worshipping of Roman ungodliness is 
rooted.’3 And even the gentle Melanchthon was roused 
to wrath by a measure so sanguinary and treacherous, 
which he, too, ascribed, not to Henry himself, but to 
the ‘wily and subtle sophistications’ of the Romanising 
bishops. He sent to the King a long and earnest letter 
with an elaborate refutation of the articles; and he 
entreated him, for the love of Christ, not to defile his 
conscience by defending ‘the idolatry, errors, and 


* Narrative of George Constantine, printed in the Archeologia, 
vol, xxiii. ? October 29, 1539. Zurich Letters, p. 526, 
3 Strype, Eccl. Mem. vol, i, 2. 438, ; 


358 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


cruelty, and filthy lusts of Antichrist.’* The letter was 
afterwards printed, and its circulation greatly irritated 
Henry, all the more that Melanchthon referred in the — 
plainest terms to the disgrace of detaining in prison such 
men as Latimer and Shaxton, very ‘ lanthorns of light’ to 
the Church of England. : 
These gloomy prospects were, however, unexpectedly 
dissipated for a time ; and, indeed, the six articles were — 
never enforced over England with the relentless severity 
contemplated by Gardiner and his abettors. Cromwell 
had failed in his project for advancing the Reformation in 
England ; but his other project of procuring an alliance 
with a Protestant princess was successful. Henry’s scruples — 
were overcome ; he fancied himself in love with Holbein’s — 
exquisite miniature ; and though anxious to evade com- 
mitting himself to the religious principles of the Smalcaldic 
League, yet his alliance with them could not but influence — 
his domestic policy. The execution of the Statute was 
therefore not ‘ put in use’ immediately, and the threatened — 
commissions for searching for heretics were not in the 
meantime issued. More than this, in a royal proclamation © 
of November 14,2 Henry expressed in more emphatic 
language than he had ever yet employed, his earnest desire - 
that all his subjects, ‘at times convenient, might give them- 
selves to the attaining the knowledge of God’s word,’ a 
desire which could not be accomplished, he added, ‘by 
any means,’ better than ‘by granting to them the free 
and liberal use of the Bible in our own maternal English — 
tongue.’ ie 
The marriage contract with Anne of Cleves was signed 
in September, and the remaining months of the year were 
spent in preparation for the approaching nuptials. The 
progress of the bride towards England was unusually — 
tedious ; storms delayed her long at Calais, but at last sh 


t Foxe, vol. v. p. 351. ee: 
= Rymer’ s Feedera, vol. xiv. p. 649 ; Anderson’s Annals, vol. ii. p. 83. 


Anne of Cleves 359 


arrived at Dover on December 27, and immediately set 
out to meet her impatient lord. The marriage was duly 
solemnised by Cranmer on January 6; but Cromwell’s 
success in accomplishing his long-cherished desire proved 
his ruin. 

The story need not be again repeated. Every one 
knows the degrading details of Henry’s unfortunate fourth 
matrimonial speculation: the unhappy Queen, in a strange 
land, surrounded by strangers of whose language she was 
totally ignorant, ungainly in her person, and unable to 
make amends for her want of beauty by her sprightliness 
or wit: Henry ‘strook to the heart’ at the very first inter- 
view, submitting unwillingly to the marriage ceremony, 
becoming daily more disgusted with his awkward spouse 
and openly expressing his dislike in the coarsest terms : 
the courtiers watching the progress of events with eager 


anxiety, and only too glad to outbid each other in zeal in | 
gratifying their sovereign’s wishes : the plot culminating | 
at last in the loathsome details and process of the divorce; | 
all this is familiar to readers as one of the most humiliating | 


pages in English history. No one has undertaken to / 


apologise for Henry’s treatment of Anne of Cleves ; indeed, 
Henry’s relations with his queens form the blackest side 
of his character, and compel the biographer, who would 
otherwise speak with respect and even admiration, to use 
the language of severest censure. 

The ultimate results of the marriage were most un- 
fortunate for the English Protestants ; for a few months, 
however, at the commencement of 1540, it secured for 
them a greater amount of freedom than they had hitherto 
enjoyed, and their hopes began to revive again. ‘The 
state and condition of England,’ writes one of the refugees 
to Bullinger,t ‘is much more sound and healthy since the 
marriage of the Queen than it was before. She is an 
excellent woman, and one who fears God; great hopes 


t John Butler’s Letter, Feb. 24,1540. Zurich Letters, p. 627. 


360 From Latimer’s Resignatben tg ee 


are entertained of a very extensive propagation of 
Gospel by her influence. There is now no persec 
. The Word is powerfully preached by an indivi 
named Barnes, and his fellow-ministers’ [Garret, Latim 
chaplain, and Jerome, Vicar of Stepney, one of Latimer’s 
dearest friends]. ‘Books of every kind may safely be 
exposed to sale.’ In short, the operation of the Bloody 
Statute, so much dreaded, had been for the time co. 
pletely suspended ; the Reformers were at perfect libe 
to preach as they pleased, and to circulate all sorts of 
books ; and Latimer was perhaps regretting his resignation 
daibliar that he might have been of more service to 
religion, as a free man in his diocese, than looking out over 
Lincoln’s Inn Fields from the windows of the Bishop oi 
Chichester’s palace. : 
This short gleam of sunshine lasted only while Henry 
kept up the appearance of outward courtesy towards 
queen, and while he was perhaps undecided as to his r 
movements. In April, 1540, however, it was plain to 
every one that he was by no means satisfied with the 
unfortunate Anne, and after the first week of May he 
openly deserted her. His disgust, naturally enough, 
embittered his feelings towards those who had been m 
- active in promoting the detested marriage ; and the P 
testants at length began to feel the weight of his d 
pleasure. Almost the first to suffer from the ro 
disappointment was Latimer’s old Cambridge frie: 
Barnes. He had been especially active in promoting’ 
German alliance, and probably expected some reward 
his services. He had also been conspicuous in usin 
unwonted liberty of preaching, which all seemed to 
enjoyed in the spring of 1540. Unhappily he had not 
lost his former rashness. Gardiner had preached at Px 


course, had attacked the doctrines of the Reform 
Barnes occupied the same pulpit three Sundays later. 


Cromwell’s Fall 361 


replied to Gardiner in a strain of ill-judged personal abuse. 
‘He made a pleasant allegory of a cock-fight’ (says Foxe, 
who sees no harm in thus comparing a grave discussion on 
important religious doctrines to a cock-fight), ‘ terming the 
said Gardiner to be a fighting-cock, and himself to be 
another ; but the garden-cock lacketh good spurs’—and 
so on in the same vein. 

The consequences may be anticipated. Gardiner com- 
plained to Henry of the indignity thus publicly put upon 
him ; Barnes was summoned into the royal presence, and 
after some hesitation he agreed to retract what he had 
taught. He read his retractation accordingly at Paul’s 
Cross, but added to it a reiteration of his former opinions, 
for which he was summarily committed to the Tower, 
with his companions Jerome and Garret, there to await 
the King’s pleasure, and the determination of Parliament. 

In a few days the Tower received a more distinguished 
victim. On June 10, Cromwell was accused of high 
treason by the Duke of Norfolk before the Privy Council, 
and was arrested and sent to the Tower. Such a step as 
the accusation of the Prime Minister of England was of 
course not taken without previously consulting the King, 
to whom it is clear that Cromwell had somehow given 
mortal offence. What the exact offence of the great 
minister was, has been a matter of debate ever since his 
fall ; but the common rumour was probably well-founded 
which ascribed his downfall to his promoting the German 
marriage, and opposing Henry’s contemplated divorce. 
For it was already notorious that the King’s affections had 
been captivated by a young lady, niece of the Duke of 
Norfolk, as unlike his German spouse as possible, little of 
stature, arch and sprightly, and charming with all the 
vivacity of youth. 

Henry had first seen this juvenile beauty at a banquet 
_ given by Gardiner to celebrate the marriage with Anne of 
Cleves ; Gardiner had marked the impression made_ upon 


J 4 


362 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


his royal master, and all the Romish party were of course 
anxious to promote the influence of Catherine Howard, as 


Henry was an impetuous lover, and the citizens of Londed 1 
were not a little scandalised to see the King ‘ frequently — 
in the day-time, and sometimes at midnight, pass over’ 
[to visit his new love] ‘on the river Thames ina little 
boat.’ The citizens spoke only of adultery, but Henry 
meditated divorce ; and on Cromwell’s imprisonment the 
voice of public rumour declared that he had been 
imprisoned because ‘he did not support the King, as 
Winchester and the other courtiers did, in this project, 
but rather asserted that it would be neither for the King’s — 
honour, nor for the good of the kingdom.’ * 4 

In truth it was a wonderful instance of history repeating 
itself ; and a parallel might be drawn in many particulars 
Beiyecn the position of affairs when Henry was prosecuting 
his first divorce from his first foreign wife, and that when — 
he was meditating his second divorce from a second foreign 
queen. Anne Boleyn had ruined Wolsey; Catherine 
Howard overthrew Cromwell. , 

The unhappy minister had few friends ; the Lords hated 
him because he was an upstart ; the Commons had not 
recovered their equanimity so seriously disturbed by the 
enormous subsidy that Cromwell had just demanded 


a few days before been the fountain of wealth and honour, 
surrounded by thousands of greedy petitioners. A Bill of 
Attainder was passed denouncing him as ‘the most false 
and corrupt traitor, deceiver and circumventor against 
your most royal person and the imperial crown of this your 
realm that hath been known, seen, or heard of in all the 
time of your most noble reign.’ The proofs of such a 


monstrous accusation were very few and slight ; it v as 


Cromwell’s Execution 363 


suspected of being traitors ; that be had granted licences 
for corn, etc. ; that he, ‘ being a person of as poor and low 
degree as few be within this your realm,’ had dared to say 
that he was sure of the King; and that he was a heretic, 
who secretly connived at the circulation of heretical books, 
and was the patron of all heretics, especially of Barnes, 
then prisoner in the Tower.t No evidence worthy of the 
name was brought against him ; he was not even tried, for 
by an infamous law, which he had himself procured in the 
previous Parliament, persons accused of treason might be 
condemned without trial. 

On June 29, Henry gave his royal assent to the Bill 
prepared by his obsequious legislators ; but the death of 
Cromwell was delayed for a month. For Henry was busy 
prosecuting his divorce before Convocation, and Crom- 
well’s evidence was not altogether useless to him. Con- 
vocation were not difficult to persuade; after listening to 
some evidence, most revoltingly indecent, they unanimously 
decided that Henry had never given his ‘ inward consent’ 
to his marriage with Anne of Cleves, that the ‘sacrament 
of matrimony’ was therefore incomplete, and utterly 
null and void, and that both parties were free to marry 
again,? 

On July 28, Cromwell perished on the scaffold, quietly 
committing his soul into the hands of God, and patiently 
‘suffering the stroke of the axe bya ragged and butcherly 
miser’ [wretch], ‘who very ungoodly performed the 
office.’3 It is not creditable to English historical inquirers, 
that the great statesman has not yet found a fitting 
biographer ; but he does not need any lengthened epitaph. 
His faults have appeared sufficiently in the course of this 
narrative ; he was too subservient to his master, and his 
hands were defiled by ill-gotten gains; but to him Eng- 

* Burnet, vol. iv. p. 41 


5. 
2 Cranmer’s Register: Burnet, vol. iv. p. 431, etc 
3 Fowe, vol. v. p. 403. 


oni 


-\364 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


country have surpassed him ; and Cranmer, who knew him 
well, and loved him dearly, has scarcely exaggerated in 


faithfulness, and experience, as no prince in this rea m 

ever had.” ? : 
Two days later, Barnes, Jerome, and Garret perished at 

the stake, condemned to death as Cromwell had been, 


died with patience and constancy, ‘remaining in the fire 
without crying out,’ says one, who was probably an eye- 
witness, ‘as quiet and patient as though they had felt no 
pain.’? As if to give terrible emphasis to Henry’s declara- 
tion that he inclined neither to the one side nor to 


known to us years ago as one of Latimer’s opponents at 
Bristol. 8 
During these occurrences Latimer remained, as before, 


Chichester ; but the reawakening of persecution in th 
commencement of 1540 seems to have exposed him 

fresh danger. Not improbably he had given some new 
provocation by his uncompromising language, and had 
again roused Henry’s anger; he certainly considered 
himself to be in great peril, and, as he subsequenth 
told King Edward, he ‘looked every day to be callec 
to execution.’ And, if we may believe a curious anecdote 
which has been accidentally preserved among Cec 
correspondence, Latimer was in imminent danger, ai 
owed his safety to the courage of some friendly courtii 
Cranmer probably, who ventured to remonstrate with - 


™ Cranmer’s Remains, p. 401. 
? Hilles to Bullinger : Zurich Letters, p. 209. 


oo 


Latimer in Danger 365 


offended monarch : ‘Consider, sire, what a singular man 
he is, and cast not that away in one hour which nature and 
art hath been so many years in breeding and perfecting.’ * 

In the spring of 1540, Sampson fell under suspicion as 
too zealous a supporter of the old Romish practices, and 
was sent to the Tower. It became necessary, therefore, 
once more to decide what was to be done with Latimer ; 
and on such a subject Henry was, of course, consulted. 
In the end of April, Sir Ralph Sadler received royal 
instruction to write to Cromwell, then newly made Earl 
of Essex: ‘Touching Latimer, his majesty would have 
him yet to remain in the Bishop’s house till he may speak 
with you, and devise what is best to do with him.’? It 
would appear that, as the result of this communication 
between Henry and Cromwell, Latimer was allowed a 
greater amount of freedom, and was perhaps entirely set 
at liberty. With his characteristic boldness he used his 
freedom to support his old friend Barnes. In the last 
letter probably that Barnes ever wrote, after referring 
to his fierce controversy with Gardiner, he adds, ‘many 
persons approve my statements, yet no one stands forward 
except Latimer,’ 3 who thus stood nobly to the last by the 


friend whom, in spite of his rash impetuosity, he loved 


and respected as a true minister of Christ. 

For a time after his release Latimer may have lived 
with Cranmer at Lambeth, or with his old nurse, Mrs. 
Statham. The general pardon to all offenders, published 
in July, and which excepted only the Anabaptists and the 
Sacramentaries, would of course include Latimer, who was 
thus definitely set at liberty. One tyrannical condition, 


* Letter of Sir Thomas Wrothe to Sir William Cecil—State Paper 
Office : Ireland, Elizabeth, vol. x., April 16, 1564. 

2 State Papers, vol. i. p. 627 : the writer goes on to speak of Henry’s 
intention to makea present of the Bishop’s mule to the Duke of Suffolk, 
which has been referred to as a proof of Henry’s mean cruelty to 
Latimer : but it was probably the Bishop of Chichester’s mule that was 
meant, not Latimer’s. 

3 Barnes to Atpinus : Zurich Letters, p. 617. 


366 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 — 

however, was attached to his freedom, as a token of 
Henry’s displeasure : he was prohibited from preach 
or from coming within six miles of the two Universities, 
the city of London, or his own diocese.* Thus con- 
demned to silence and obscurity, Latimer seems to haw ve 


hospitable country friends; and there were many in 
various parts of England who would gladly welcome 
under their roof the preacher whose words had once 


of his life till May, 1546, when the State Papers will again 
bring him before us, incurring the suspicion of the Councii 
by his bold sympathy with the more vigorous Reformers 
Of the intervening years no record has been preserved ; 
only the vaguest information has drifted down to us, 
related with such provoking indefiniteness that the few 
facts cannot be assigned to their precise date, or chronicled 
with certainty in any exact order. Such as it is, it may 
best be inserted here, with such conjectures as to 
probable date and order of each occurrence, as seem 
warranted by the circumstances. 

‘A little after he had renounced his bishopric,’ sa 
Foxe, ‘first he was almost slain, but sore bruised, with 
the fall of a tree. Then, coin up to Lowland for 
remedy, he was molested and troubled of the bishops, 
whereby he was again in no little danger ; and at length 
was cast into the Tower, where he continually remained 


be fixed ; Foxe says it was ‘shortly after he had renoum a d 


* Hilles to Bullinger : Zurich Letters, p. 215. ie 
? Foxe, vol. vii. p. 463. as 


Latimer in London 367 


his bishopric,’ but Foxe’s chronology is proverbially vague. 
We may assume, however, that it could not have happened 
before his committal to the Bishop of Chichester’s palace ; 
it must therefore be assigned to some date later than July, 
1540. Remembering, also, that Latimer had been expressly 
prohibited from approaching London, we shall probably 
- not err in conjecturing that it was not till the commence- 
ment of 1544 that he ventured to the metropolis, doubtless 
to avail himself of the skill of his old friend Butts ; for the 
Parliament of 1544 materially mitigated the severity of the 
Bloody Statute, and he would probably be able to come to 
London without incurring any danger. 

Vague as Foxe is, Latimer’s servant, Augustine Bernher, 
is still more unsatisfactory ; and his vagueness is the more 
provoking because no one knew better the whole circum- 
stances of this part of Latimer’s life. His account, indeed, 
is so carelessly expressed as almost to suggest to an un- 
wary reader an entirely false version of this portion of 
Latimer’s history. Writing in the vague declamatory 
vein so inimical to all accuracy of statement, he says 
that Latimer, rather than submit to the Six Articles, 
was content ‘to be cast into the Tower, where he daily 
looked for death,’ a most unhappy summary of eight years 
of his master’s life. ‘But,’ he proceeds, ‘God mercifully 
delivered him, to the great comfort of all godly hearts, 
and singular commodity of His Church, at which time he 
begun to set forth his plough,’* and to preach with more 
diligence than ever. So meagre, indeed, is Bernher’s 
account of Latimer’s proceedings at this period that it 
adds nothing to our knowledge, but rather needs to be 
interpreted and modified to keep it from being glaringly 
at variance with the few facts that are perfectly ascertained. 

It has also been asserted by Echard that Latimer used 
to be entertained with other Reforming preachers in the 
‘ hospitable mansion of the Dowager Lady Latimer, during 
* Latimer’s Sermons, Bernher’s Dedication, p. 318, etc, 


368 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1647 9 


the period of her second widowhood, and before she 
became Henry’s sixth queen. The story is not altogether 
incredible, but it is highly improbable, for her second 
widowhood was a very short one, lasting only from about 
the end of January to July 10, 1543. If we accept the 
occurrence as possible, we must assign it to the spring of 
1543 ; and it is interesting to believe that Latimer’s teach- 
ing may have implanted a love of the Reformation in the 
heart of the only one of Henry’s queens who manifested 
any sincere and intelligent regard for the doctrines of the 
Reformers. 

Finally, Thomas Becon tells us that when he was in 
trouble in the reign of Henry, and had to seek shelter at 
a distance from London, he met Latimer in Warwickshire 
and was enchanted with his conversation, as much as if he 


in the new glorious Jerusalem.’! It was about 1545 that 
Becon was in hiding, and though no place is mentioned, 
we may conjecture that it was at Baxterley, the residence 
of the Glovers, intimate friends, and, it is surmised, even 
distant relations of Latimer, that the interview took place. 

Such, then, are the few scattered gleanings which con- 


1540 to the spring of 1546; and the summary appears all 
the more meagre after the full and copious narrative wh 
his correspondence furnished of the four years of his 
episcopate. We can see only the general course of his 
life during these six years of silence ; we see him travel- 
ling from one friend’s house to another, welcomed in many 
a country mansion and many a quiet parsonage ; not pub- 
licly preaching, since the King had forbidden this ; but in 
the family circle, by the influence of a pure example, and 
the power of holy conversation, diffusing around him th e 
love and knowledge of his Divine Master ; sowing © 

seed which was afterwards to ripen into a glorious harve 


™ Fewel of Foy: Becon’s works, vol. ii. p, 426. 


A Period of Rest 369 


To himself also, after the hurry and excitement of the past 
fourteen years, this period of repose would be neither 
disagreeable nor useless. His bodily frame needed rest ; 
his mind needed to be relaxed after its harassing labours ; 
he wanted leisure to study more closely his own theo- 
logical opinions, and to purge himself from that leaven of 
Romish doctrine which still adhered to him. Much would 
be learned if in those years of rest he practised that habit, 
which his servant tells us he observed in his more active 
days, and which seems so strange to our altered notions, 
of being ‘ordinarily every morning, both summer and 
winter, about two of the clock in the morning, most dili- 
gently at his book.’ When he comes before us as the 
gr2at preacher of the reign of Edward VI., we shall find 
his religious views improved in richness of experience 
and accuracy of statement by the leisure and study of 
these years of rest. 

t only remains that we should briefly trace the progress 
of religion in England down to the period when Latimer 
again appears prominently on the scene. The advance. 
ment of Catherine Howard to the throne of course in 
creased the influence of Gardiner and the Romish party ; 
and the Reformers again seemed threatened with the full 
violence of the Bloody Statute. Again, however, had they 
to thank that overruling Hand which had so often saved 
them from destruction. Affairs on the Continent were 
threatening, and Gardiner, as the ablest of all Henry’s 
diplomatists, was accordingly sent abroad, and was 
detained there, from various causes, till October, 1541, 
only returning to find that the source of all his renewed 
influence had failed him. The long-delayed commissions 
for searching after heresies were, indeed, issued, but 
even these were wonderfully overruled in their severity. 

In January, 1541, the commission for the diocese of 
London was issued to -Bonner, who had succeeded 

* Bernher’s Dedication : Latimer’s Sermons, p. 320. 


24 


Cromwell’s fall: That busy prelate, anxious to clea 
himself from all suspicion of having imbibed hereti 
opinions from his late patron, lost no time in carrying 
his commission into execution. In almost every parish of 
London men and women were arrested, not merely for 
the offences specified in the Six Articles, ‘but for neglect- 
ing the old ceremonies of the Church, for reading the 


eating flesh in Lent, and similar offences. The prisons 
were filled ; good Mrs. Statham, so well known to us as 
Latimer’s nurse, was ‘ noted’ for harbouring in her house 
Latimer, Barnes, and others ; Dr. Taylor, of St. Peteg 3 3 
bert, “8 committed to custody ; Crome was atrestedll 
Grafton and Whitchurch, who had printed the Bible in” 
Paris three years before, under Bonner’s own super- 
_ intendence, were incarcerated. Thomas Becon, from 
whom we have just quoted, was sent to prison, and, 
it is said, nearly five hundred others. But Bonner’s zeal 
overreached itself ; the prisoners were too numerous ; no 
one could contemplate the possibility of a holocaust 
five hundred victims ; there were, besides, legal formali 


two seem to have been sent to Smithfield for openly 
attacking the Six Articles ; some recanted and bore fagots, 
. but, on the whole, the dreaded danger passed off with 
little injury. 


: ‘It had been good that he had been despatched long ago,’ } 
his sympathetic observation when he heard of Cromwell’s arrest. 
2 Foxe, vol. Vv. p. 451. 


Catherine Howard 371 


Nor was there wanting, even in this dark period of 
apprehended persecution, some hopeful symptom to cheer 
the hearts of the Reformers; for, in May, Henry issued a 
proclamation, ordering more peremptorily than before 
those parishes which had hitherto neglected to provide 
themselves with Bibles, as he had enjoined, to procure a 
copy of the largest volume before November 1, under the 
penalty of forfeiting forty shillings a month (= thirty 
pounds), a sum sufficiently large to ensure prompt obedi- 
ence. On the whole, therefore, the year was by no means 
so fatal to the interests of the Reformation as it threatened. 
to be, and its last closing days witnessed the rapid decline 
of the Romish ascendency. 

Henry’s fifth marriage was one long sixteen months’ 
honeymoon. He declared that he had never known con- 
nubial happiness till now. Catherine Howard had all the 
sprightly vivacity of Anne Boleyn; her lively temperament 
was an endless pleasure to a monarch who was now almost 
a confirmed invalid ; and, in the depth of his affectionate 
gratitude for so suitable a partner, after his previous 
matrimonial disappointments, he had ordered one of his 
prelates to give public thanks to God for His great mercy 
in giving him such an excellent wife. 

From this pleasant dream he was rudely awaked on All 
Souls’ Day, by a communication from Cranmer, acquaint- 
ing him with his Queen’s misconduct, certainly, before 
matriage, and possibly, also, since her nuptials. Henry 
was thunderstruck with this unpleasant intelligence ; he 
had never suspected his spouse of any indiscretion, and 
was so completely taken aback by the disclosures that he 
burst into tears. The unfortunate Queen, whose early 
years had wanted the care of a watchful mother, and who 
had been betrayed into dangerous courses by the evil 
influence of vicious attendants, was committed to prison, 
and a new Parliament was summoned, to decide the 
question of her guilt or innocence. 


372 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


The Parliament assembled on January 16, 1542, an 
was not long in coming to the conclusion that the Qu 
had been guilty. The unhappy Catherine, who ha id 
scarcely passed out of her girlhood, was ordered to be 
beheaded ; and her husband, left for the fifth time ; 
widower, was humbly en by his subservient Parlia- 
ment not to be overmuch troubled with these unexpected © 
misfortunes, lest his grief should cut short his valuable _ 
life. 

A new Convocation had also assembled, the second oi f 
what may be called the Reformed Gonuocneaus and th 1 
proceedings commenced with the customary Latin sermon, 
preached by Cox, Archdeacon cf Ely, and tutor of the 
young Prince Edward. The opening sermon of the pre- 
vious Convocation had been preached by Latimer, and 
had stirred all England to the very depths; but, on the 
present occasion, the hearers were probably not shocked 
by any plain-spoken denunciation of their own offences 
and negligence. ‘ Ye are the salt of the earth,’ was Cox’s 
text ; and the sermon, it is more than probable, was in 
strong contrast to the bold and faithful eloquence of 
Latimer. The state of religion, of course, occupied the 
attention of Convocation ; and proposals were made for 
revising the English version of the Holy Scriptures, which, 
it was alleged, was in many respects inaccurate and un- 
worthy of the original. A scheme was accordingly devised 
for distributing the books of the New Testament am 
the various Bishops for a careful revision. The obj 
which the Romish party had in view in promoting this 
measure soon became apparent. Gardiner read in Con- 
vocation a list of certain words which he proposed 
leave in Latin, on account of ‘the majesty of the ma 
contained in them’; or as Fuller, with his caustic shre 
ness, puts it, ‘he wished such words to be kept as - 
long kept him and his fellow-priests.’ No doubt Gardi 
hoped, by dint of good generalship, to get the actual 


» 


Fc i i 


A Retrograde Step 373 


version called in or limited in its circulation, until some 
new revised version was finished, which, as Cranmer had 
remarked, would not have been till ‘the day after dooms- 
day.’ His artifices were, however, unsuccessful ; Cranmer 
referred the matter to Henry, and the King withdrew the 
revision from the Bishops, and promised to submit it to 
the Universities. The revision never took place; Holy 
Scripture was not to be tampered with by men whose 
lives had been spent in preventing the circulation of the 
Word of God among the people. 

Next year, however (1543), as if to demonstrate the 
truth of Cromwell’s assertion, that Henry belonged to 
neither party, but was perfectly impartial in his policy, 
Parliament passed an Act, called, by a curious misnomer, 
‘An Act for the Advancement of True Religion,’ which 
must have brought a smile of triumph over the faces of 
Gardiner and his friends. It ordered that ‘all books of 
the Old and New Testament in English, of Tindale’s 
translation, should be clearly and utterly abolished and 
extinguished, and forbidden to be kept and used in the 
realm,’ and that after the rst of October no one should 
openly read any part of Holy Scripture in English, unless 
appointed by the King or the ordinary, under penalty of a 
month’s imprisoninent ; and even went so far as to enact 
that women (except women of high birth), artificers, 
apprentices, and labourers, should not read the Scriptures 
to themselves or any others, openly or privately, under 
the same penalty. This was the most decidedly retro- 
grade step that Henry had taken since the passing of the 
Six Articles; yet there were mingled with it various 
circumstances which considerably mitigated its severity, 
and which were owing to Cranmer’s resolute opposition. 
The penalty, it will be seen, was a very mild one compared 
with the sanguinary punishments enacted by the Bloody 
Statute. Against Tindale’s version the Act was entirely 
inoperative ; for, besides the translation bearing that 


374 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 — 


illustrious martyr’s name, there were others in circulati 
virtually his, under another name, which were prin 
with a direct royal sanction that Parliament dared 
invade. And there were so many exceptions, so 
loopholes of escape in the clauses which limited the pu 
and private reading of Holy Scripture, that there could be 
little difficulty in evading them without incurring the 
penalty of the law; and thus the Romish party rather 
manifested their anxious desire to oppose the progress of 
the Reformation, than succeeded in throwing any insuper+ 
able obstacles in the way of its success. 

This year also was printed (May 29th) the long-meditated 
book, The necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian 
Man ; the conjoint result of the deliberations of the leadi ng 
ihiaines on both sides. The Reforming party were, on 
the whole, unsuccessful in their efforts to infuse into this 
revised edition of the Institution of a Christian Man, 
opinions more in accordance with their own enlar 
orthodoxy. The mass, the seven sacraments, prayers f 
the dead, and several other traces of the old leaven of 
Romish creed, were enforced as the truth of God, to be 
believed by ail medias necessary to salvation. Purgatory, 
indeed, with its endless catalogue of abuses, found no 
place in the book, and, so far, it was an improvement 
upon the lisiisioe winch had preceded it; but, on the 
other hand, it was expressly declared by Henry in his 
preface that the ‘reading of the Holy Scripture is not sO 
necessary for the laity that they be bound to read it, but 
as the Prince and the policy of the realm shall th 
convenient it may be tolerated or taken from them,’ 
book thus completed, after the careful deliberations 
three years, was issued with royal authority, which, it 
be remembered, had never been extended to the Institu 
and was popularly known, in consequence, as ‘ The Ki 
Book.’ And in contemplating it, Gardiner and his frie: 
must have congratulated themselves upon the succes 


The King’s Book 375 


their labours ; it was assuredly no small triumph to them 
to have thus almost arrested the progress of the Reforming 
movement in England, and, in some respects, to have 
induced Henry to retrace his steps. They had, indeed, 
been foiled in their efforts to extinguish Protestantism by 
relentless severity; but they still persevered in them. 
Gardiner, it was said by the common people, had bent his 
bow to shoot at some of the head deer. An attempt was 
made to incriminate Cranmer, who was even represented 
to Henry as the great arch-heretic of England, but all such 
efforts were vain, Henry’s confidence in the perfect 
honesty and integrity of the primate was not to be shaken, 
and the conspirators found to their great chagrin that they 
had overshot their mark, and they had to provide for their 
own safety by submission and humble apology. Minor 
offenders, however, against the persecuting statutes, were 
not so fortunate. On July 28, three men were burned at 
Windsor in the very sight of Henry ; and before Christmas, 
Gardiner trusted ‘to visit and cleanse a good part of the 
realm’ after the same fashion. 

But, as Foxe quaintly remarks, ‘God commonly sendeth 
a shrewd cow short horns.’ Gardiner’s projected cleansing 
by fire and fagot was happily arrested at the very com- 
mencement. On July roth Henry once again entered the 
married state; and, providentially for the Reformation, 
his Queen, the beautiful and accomplished Catherine Parr, 
was a woman of unquestionable piety, who deeply loved 
the Gospel as the Reformers preached it. All her influence 
with Henry was employed, cautiously, yet not the less 
effectually, in mitigating the ferocity of the Acts against 
the Reformers, and in gently inclining him towards a 
further Reformation in his kingdom. She was not always — 
successful, it is true ; even her own life was sometimes in 
danger ; Henry’s temper, exasperated by a painful malady, 
would little brook restraint, and occasionally broke out in 
ungovernable violence ; deeds of blood still marked his 


ae Res 


marriage with Catherine Parr, we may date the coi 
mencement of a gradual brightening of the prospects of 
the English Reformation. 

In 1544, for example, through the energy of Cranmer, 
most important limitations were attached to the operation 
of the infamous ‘Bloody Statute.’ It was decreed by 


than one year were to be actionable ; that no one was to 
be brought to trial till he had been legally presented on 
the oaths of twelve men, nor to be imprisoned till he had 
thus been indicted. Preachers, moreover, were not to be 
liable to accusation for words spoken against the Six 
Articles, unless proceedings against them were instituted 
within forty days of the alleged utterance of heretical 
doctrine. A royal warrant might still override all these 
safeguards against persecution; but, on the whole, the 
English Reformers had abundant reason for gratitude to 
Cranmer for thus extracting the fangs of Gardiner’s fiery 
scorpions. 

Another most important step in the progress of thi 
Reformation was the introduction, by royal mandate this 
year (1544), of prayers in the Enel tongue, in addition 
to the public reading already decreed of a chapter of the 
New Testament, in English, by the parish clergyman every 
Sunday and holy-day throughout the year: The language 
of the royal mandate is so beautiful, that it is justice to- 
Henry to give it almost entire, as illustrating a side of his 
character that has been somewhat overlooked in the hasty 
popular judgments passed upon him. ” 

‘Calling to remembrance the miserable state of all 
Christendom, being at this present, so plagued with mi 
cruel wars, hatreds and dissensions, as no place of the 
same almost remaineth in good peace, agreement and 
concord ; the help and remedy whereof far exceeding the 


t Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. i. pt. i. 580. 


‘Certain Godly Prayers’ 377 


power of any man, must be called for of Him who only 
is able to grant our petitions, and never forsaketh nor 
repelleth any that firmly believe and faithfully call upon 
Him; unto whom also the examples of Scripture 
encourageth us, in all these and other our troubles and 
necessities, to fly and to cry for aid and succour ; being 
therefore resolved to have -continually from henceforth 
general processions,’ in all cities, towns, churches, and 
parishes, of this our realm, said and sung, with such 
reverence and devotion as appertaineth: forasmuch as 
heretofore the people, partly for lack of good instruction 
and calling on, partly for that they understood no part of 
such prayers or suffrages as were used to be sung or said, 
have used to come very slackly to the processions when 
the same have been commanded heretofore : 

‘WE HAVE set forth certain godly prayers and suffrages 
in our native English tongue,—to the setting forward of 
the glory of God, and the true worshipping of His most 
Holy Name,—not to be for a month or two observed, and 
afterwards slenderly considered, as our other injunctions 
have, to our no little marvel, been used ; but to the intent 
that, as well as the same, as our other injunctions, may 
earnestly be set forth, by preaching, good exhortations, 
and other ways to the people, in such sort, as they, feeling 
the godly taste thereof, may, godly and joyously, with 
thanks, receive, embrace, and frequent the same.’? 

The godly ‘ prayers and suffrages,’ thus issued by royal 
authority in the English language, formed the first rudi- 
ments of that Book of Common Prayer which has exercised 
so great an influence on the religious opinions and senti- 
ments of the English nation. They included large 
extracts from the Psalms, and a paraphrase on the 
Lord’s Prayer; but the chief feature was a Litany, or 
Prayer of Procession, in many respects the same as the 


t J.e., prayers said or sung while marchirg round the church. 
? Burnet, vol. iv. p. 530, from Cranmer’s Regisier. 


det Bil 


tising against the Royal Supremacy, and was executed — 
as a traitor, the bishop himself not escaping without — 
suspicion of having been privy to his kinsman’s treason ; 
and an attempt to bring a charge of heresy against 
Cranmer in the House of Commons, was summarily 


and ask the Archbishop’s forgiveness. When it is added — 
that Henry was abroad in France, engaged in war, for 
most of the last six months of the year, that Gardiner and 
Norfolk were with him, and that the Queen was left as 
regent in his absence, arith Cranmer at the head of her — 
Council, it will be readily understood that the Reformers 
in England had again begun to recover their fallen spirits, 
and that the year 1544 was looked upon by them as fur- — 
nishing many reasons for gratitude to the God who had ‘ 
so wonderfully overruled the malice of their enemies. q 
The next year, 1545, was equally favourable to the 
interests of the Reformation. Henry’s attention wa: 
mainly occupied with his wars against Scotland and 
France, and with expedients to replenish his utterly 
exhausted treasury. Foxe finds nothing done this year 
in England, worthy to be noted; the Reformers being 
left apparently without molestation to preach as they 
pleased. One more attempt was made to overthrow 
Cranmer, but was defeated with such signal discom- 
fiture that the good Archbishop’s enemies made no further — 
attempts against him. It was the famous occasion which 
Shakespeare has depicted with his usual happy skill, and» 
his usual disregard also for chronological accuracy. §S 
of the Privy Council accused Cranmer to Henry of hav 
through the men whom he patronised, ‘ infected the who 


Cranmer’s Peril 379 


realm with his unsavoury doctrines till three parts of 
England were become abominable heretics’: and they 
requested that he might be committed to the Tower. 
Henry agreed to allow Cranmer to be brought before 
the Council for examination, but declined to send him 
to the Tower ; and summoning the Archbishop, he gave 
him his own ring, as a warrant to appeal against any 
decree of the Council. 

The sequel is known to every reader of English 
literature : how the Council, with the insolence of pre- 
sumed triumph, kept the Archbishop dancing attendance 
at their door, ‘’mongst pursuivants, pages, and footboys’ ; 
how the King and Butts, themselves unseen, witnessed 
this ‘high promotion of his Grace of Canterbury’ ; how 
the patient primate was bullied by the Council, and 
ordered to be conveyed to the Tower forthwith ; their 
discomfiture when Cranmer appealed, and produced the 
royal signet; their alarm when Henry strode in; the 
King’s indignant rebuke of his cowardly councillors :— 


‘I'd thought I’d had men of some understanding 
And wisdom of my council ; but I find none. 
Was it discretion, lords, to let this man, 

This good man ( few of you deserve that title), 
This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy 

At chamber-door ? and one as great as you are ? 
Why, what a shame was this! Did my commission 
Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye 
Power as he was a counsellor to try him, 

Not as a groom: there’s some of ye, I see, 

More out of malice than integrity, 

Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean ; 
Which ye shall never have while I live. 

. . . My lords, respect him ; 

Take him, and use him well, he’s worthy of it. 

I will say thus much for him, if a prince 

May be beholden to a subject, I 

Am, for his love and service, so to him.’ 


All this, written in such pages as those of Shakespeare 
and Foxe, is one of the most familiar passages of English 


* Henry VIII., Act V. Scene iii, 


380 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


histor y, and is exquisitely characteristic of the le din 
actors in Re scene. 


thing noteworthy to us is Henry’s famous speech, spoken 
the last time that he appeared in person in the great legis- 
lature of the country. It was a curious homily, admirably 
intended, indeed, but somewhat out of keeping with t 
sovereign’s own proceedings. A few sentences from 
‘King’s Speech’ of three centuries ago, will not be un- 
acceptable to readers accustomed to the Parliamentary 
eloquences of our day; and will not improbably remind 
them of the speeches of another illustrious Englishman, 
between whom and Henry VIII. not a few resemblances 
might be traced. 

‘Since I find such kindness on your part towards 3 
I cannot choose but love and favour you, affirming that 
no prince in the world more favoureth his subjects than 
I do you, nor any subjects love and obey their sovereign 


in every place. I must needs judge the fault and octal Z 
of this discord to be partly by the negligence of you, 
fathers and preachers of the spiritualty. Alas! how ce 
the poor souls live in concord, when you preachers s 
amongst them in your sermons, debate and discord ? ; 
you they look for light, and you bring them to darkne: Se 


Henry’s Religious Policy 381 


Amend these crimes, I exhort you, and set forth God’s 
word, both by true preaching and good example-giving ; 
or else I, whom God hath appointed His vicar and high 
minister here, will see these divisions extinct, and these 
enormities corrected, according to my very duty ; or else 
I am an unprofitable servant and an untrue officer.’ 

The temporal lords were rebuked with equal plainness 
for ‘railing on bishops, speaking slanderously of priests, 
rebuking and taunting preachers.’ He complained of the 
manner in which Scripture was treated, not read to inform 
the conscience and instruct the family, but to make it 
arailing and a taunting stock against priests and preachers. 
‘IT am very sorry,’ he added, ‘to know and hear how un- 
reverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is 
disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house 
and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine 
of the same; and yet I am even as much sorry that the 
readers of the same follow it, in doing’ [in action], ‘so 
faintly and coldly.’ 

The whole oration, indeed, is wise and weighty as if 
Bacon himself had uttered it, and unfolds the oft-mistaken 
secret of Henry’s religious policy. He considered himself 
to be, by Divine appointment, the spiritual guide of his 
people ; and though grievously perplexed and sometimes 
strongly provoked by the fierce divisions and dissensions 
that prevailed amongst his subjects, he never abandoned 
the work to which, as he believed, his position called him, 
but continued to the last to guide and control the creed of 
his people. He has been accused of setting himself up as 
an infallible standard of truth, and virtually usurping all 
that the Pope had formerly claimed ; but, in fact, Henry 
would have considered himself culpably neglecting his 
highest duty if he had not done so. He had faults 
enough, but his conduct must not be judged by mere 
modern ideas of toleration, or ‘waiting upon Providence,’ 
and ‘letting things take their course:’ without some 


sf 
382 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


serious effort to understand the principle on whick 
he acted, no possible approximation can be made to 2 
correct estate of his character. 


Henry’s main principle, that persons who dared to think 
for themselves, and to advocate a more sweeping Refo' = 
mation than he approved, should expose themselves to” 
his indignation. Many proofs of this we have already 
seen ; and in the last year of his reign, which we have” 
now reached (1546), his temper, irritated by the acute 
illness which was hurrying him to his grave, broke out 
with fresh severity against some of the more zealous 
Reformers. a 

Even the Queen ran some considerable risk ; and, but 
for her great sagacity, she might have fallen a victim to 
Henry’s suspicions, artfully excited by Gardiner’s un- 
sleeping malice. And a deep blot has been left or 
Henry’s reign by the cruel treatment of one of the most 
heroic of women, Anne Askew." A lady of good family, 
she had been driven from her home by her husband, who 
hated her for her ardent love of the Scriptures, and the 
doctrines of the Protestant preachers. Her brother was 
one of the royal body-guard ; and Anne seems to have 
had access to the Court, where the Queen and some ladies 
of rank were known to be favourers of the ‘new learn- 
ing.’ In the beginning of March she was arrested and 
examined before Christopher Dare, one of the ‘ com- 
missioners for heresies,’ and subsequently before the Lord 


Bonner himself. The law of 1544 had enacted certain 
protections of all subjects in such cases ; but, in defiance 
of the law, she was committed to prison, and only after 
some delay and after on examination, in which Bonner 
endeavoured in vain to commit her to an explicit denial 
of the Six Articles, was she released; a bond for her 


% * Foxe, vol. v. p. 537, etc. 


Crome’s Case 383 


forthcoming when called upon having been signed by her 
sureties. 

Having thus disposed for the time of Anne’s case, the 
attention of the heretic-hunters was next directed to the 
bold preaching of Dr. Crome ; and now, at length, we 
shall again have Latimer before us, in documents of 
unquestionable authority. It is possible that, under the 
milder régime which had been introduced by the Parlia- 
-ment of 1544, Latimer may have ventured to return again 
to London. Certainly he was there in the spring of 1546, 
and with his characteristic fearlessness he had espoused 
the side of his old friend Crome, just as he stood faithfully 
by Barnes six years before. In the Lent of this year, Dr. 
Crome, preaching in the Mercers’ Chapel, had attacked 
purgatory with an insoluble dilemma. ‘If,’ said he, 
‘masses avail the souls in purgatory’ [as the Bishops 
taught], ‘then it must have been wrong in Parliament to 
abolish the monasteries and chantries which had been 
founded and maintained for saying masses for the dead ; 
but if, on the other hand, Parliament was right in dissolv- 
ing the monasteries’ [a position which it was not safe to 
deny ], ‘then it was plain that masses could not be of any 
benefit to departed souls.’ The inquisitors for detecting 
heresy, not feeling certain how to answer the dilemma, 
brought the troublesome logician before the Council ; and 
Crome, as weak in action as he was powerful in logic, 
yielded and recanted. From punishing Crome they pro- 
ceeded to intimidate those who had supported him in his 
teaching; and on May 13, the Council at Greenwich 
wrote to Petre, ‘This day we look for Latimer, the Vicar 
of St. Bride’s, and some others that have specially comforted 
Crome in his folly.’ * 

* State Papers, Henry VIII., vol. i. p.846. The Vicar of St. Bride’s 
was John Taylor, otherwise called Cardmaker, who died a martyr in 
1555. Lingard, whose history of this period is unworthy of his re- 
search, supposes that Latimer was the Vicar of St. Bride's! imagining 
that Latimer had submitted, and had been admitted by Henry to this 


benefice. Probably no more recklessly absurd theory has ever been 
maintained by any grave historian. 


384 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


Latimer was accordingly brought before the Council 
Greenwich on May 13, and the narrative of the proceedin 
recounted by Tunstal and Gardiner, will be welcome t 
the reader who has so long caught mere uncertain glimpses 
of the great Reformer. - 

‘We had yesterday Latimer before us,’ they say, after 
relating the story of Crome’s submission, ‘and after a 
declaration made unto him that he was accused for one 
that had devised and counselled with Crome, he made 
answer that he had indeed been sundry times in his 
company since he was at the house of me the Lord 
Chancellor’ [Wriothesley], ‘and that he had said some- 
what touching his recanting or not recanting, couching his” 
words so as he neither confessed the matter, nor yet 
uttered his mind so cleanly but somewhat stak and 
appeared by the way. 

‘Whereupon we ministered an oath unto him, and 
delivered him certain interrogatories to answer, appointing 
him a place for the quiet doing of the same ; where, when 


desiring that he might eftsoons speak sieite us, without 
the which, he could proceed no further in his answer. 
Upon which request, being much busied with the exami- 


ordered that I, the Jee of Durham’ ene and I, 
the Eohteoiler [Sir John Gage],? ‘should go to him, to 
know what he would with us: to whom making general 
answer that he could not proceed with his conscience til 1 


t The letter was properly a report, signed by many members of iH 
Council, which explains this peculiar method of expression. 


Gardiner’s Protestations 385 


put him in remembrance of this. He told us it was 
dangerous to answer such interrogatories, for that he 
might by that mean be brought into danger ; noting the 
_ proceedings therein to be more extreme than should be 
ministered unto him, if he lived under the Turk as he 
liveth under the King’s majesty’ [a bold reproof of the 
illegal violence of the Council], ‘for that he said it was 
_ sore to answer for another man’s fact ; and besides, he 
said, he doubted whether it were His Highness’s pleasure 
that he should be thus called and examined ; desiring 
therefore to speak with His Majesty himself before he 
made further answer. For he was once, he said, deceived 
that way when he left his bishopric ; being borne in hand 
by the Lord Cromwell that it was His Majesty’s pleasure 
he should resign it, which His Majesty after denied and 
pitied his condition. And finally he said he thought there 
were some that had procured this against him for malice, 
and so descended specially to me the Bishop of Win- 
chester’ [Gardiner], ‘ grounding himself upon two things, 
the one upon certain words that passed between him and 
me in the King’s chamber at Westminster’ [when Gardiner 
had accused Latimer of seditious preaching], ‘the other 
for that I wrote to the Lord Cromwell against a sermon 
that he made in the Convocation’ [the famous sermon of 
1530]. ‘Which part he engrieved much, and therein 
occupied a good time.’ 

Gardiner, in fact, declared to Latimer that he was 
mistaken in supposing that he cherished any malice; on 
the contrary, says Gardiner, ‘I declared plainly how much 
I had loved, favoured, and done for his person, and that 
he had no cause to be offended with me, though I were 
not content with his doctrine’: statements which were 
not likely to impose upon a man so shrewd as Latimer. 

The object of the Council was to prove to Latimer that 
he ought ‘to answer the interrogatories,’ though he had 
not seen them before he took his oath to answer them ; 


Le 


386 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 a 


and they represented to him that his bold langua 
‘touching his being in Turkey, was not used as beca 
him.’ ‘As to the matter of the interrogatories,’ moreo 
they said they were not captiously framed, and did 
refer to doctrines but to facts, and could therefore readily 
be answered. And ‘as touching His Majesty’s pleasure 
that he should be called, his doubt did more injury to 
Majesty than to us, in that he would enforce him to speak 
himself with every particular person which should 
called; as though no credit should be given to His 
Highness’s Council, or His Highness’s Ministers,’ Thus” 
pressed ‘to proceed according to his duty in the answer 
of the interrogatories,’ Latimer finally resolved to comply 
but the Council found themselves overmatched by his 
shrewdness. ‘He hath since answered,’ they continue, 
‘but in such sort, as we be, for the purpose, as wise almost 
as we were before ; saving that by the same he doth so 
open himself as it should appear that he is as Crome was, 
which we shall this night know thoroughly. For thi 
afternoon my Lord of Worcester’ [Heath, who now 


six bloody Articles], ‘to fish out the bottom of his 
stomach, whereby His Majesty at his coming shall see 
further in him; and thus we shall leave to cumber His 
Grace any further with him, till His Highness’s coming 
hither.’ * , 
And here the curtain descends and leaves us once more 
to our conjectures. The examination was probably con- 
cluded in Henry’s presence; and Latimer proving un- 
tractable, was remanded as a prisoner to the Tower, 
where he remained till the King’s death. Only one more 
glimpse of him is afforded us during Henry’s reign, and 
that in connection with the pious lady to whom we must 

now return. 
* State Papers, Henry VIII., vol. i. p. 848. 


Anne Askew’s Trial 387 


Anne Askew had been liberated on bail in the end of 
March ; in June she was summoned to appear at Green- 
wich, before the same section of the Privy Council that 
had recently tried Latimer. Gardiner and Wriothesley 
took the lead in examining her, endeavouring to induce 
her to acknowledge that in the sacrament ‘there was 
flesh, blood, and bone.’ For nearly a week was this noble 
woman subjected to rigorous examination, and involved in 
metaphysical discussions with the subtle Gardiner. She 
was roughly threatened with the terrible death of a martyr, 
but she stood firmly by her own honest belief. 

‘On the Sunday,’ she writes, after two days’ weary 
debate, ‘I was sore sick, thinking no less than to die; 
therefore I desired to speak with Master Latimer’ [then 
in the Tower, a prisoner], ‘but it would not be’:* the 
unhappy lady, so cruelly persecuted, was not allowed the 
consolation of an interview with the faithful preacher. 
The rest of her story, which has left so indelible a blot on 
Henry’s reign, may be soon told. She was again arraigned 
at the Guildhall. The accusation was the same as before, 
and she defended herself with ability : ‘That which you 
call your God,’? she replied to their arguments, ‘it is a 
piece of bread; and for more proof thereof,’ she added, 
‘let it but lie in the box three months, and it will be 
mouldy, and so turn to nothing that is good.’ 

Failing to shake her constancy, the ‘ quest’ condemned 
her to the flames. Even this did not satisfy her enemies, 
who hoped to implicate others as sharing in her opinions, 
and assisting her in her distress. She was sent to the 
Tower, therefore, where one hopes she may have been at 

* Lingard has thought proper to say, without any evidence, that 
Latimer recanted on his examination before the Council. This re- 
quest of Anne’s would alone disprove his assertion. On her former 
examination in March, she had wished to confess to Dr. Crome ; but 
he had now recanted, therefore she no longer wishes the ghostly 
advice of an apostate. 


2 “ Receiving their Maker” was the common phrase of the day among 
the Romanists, for receiving the Holy Communion. 


388 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 | 


last permitted some converse with Latimer. She y 
asked if none of the ladies of the Court had helped 
or if none of the Council (glancing at Cranmer) | 
maintained her. Failing to elicit any information, the} 
employed torture. The narrative must be given in her 
own words. ; 

‘They did put me upon the rack, and thereon they kept 
me along time; and because I lay still, and did not 
my Lord Chancellor’ [Wriothesley] ‘and Master 
took pains to rack me with their own hands, till I 
nigh dead. Then the lieutenant caused me to be loo 
from the rack. Incontinently I swooned, and then t 
recovered me again. After that I sat two long hours, 
reasoning with my Lord Chancellor upon the bare floor, 
. . . Then was I brought to a house, and laid in a bed, 
with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient 
Job.’* All this, besides being disgraceful, was illegal ; 
and Henry, to do him justice, though he made no effort 
to save the noble lady, was indignant at her being so 
cruelly racked. 

Gardiner and Tunstal had shared in her trial, but 
were in no way involved in the abominable atrocity ; the 
whole guilt of which must fall on the head of the Lord 
Chancellor Wriothesley, the man who was above all others 
responsible for the due observance of the law, but whe 
was a fierce haughty bigot, whom only a few weeks after 
this, Henry styled a beast. 

The last scene of Anne’s life was as honourable to her 
as all that had preceded it. She was carried to the place 
of execution in a chair, for her bones had been dislocated 
by the rack, and she could not walk; pardon was offered 
her if she would at the last moment recant, but she 
bravely answered, ‘I came not hither to deny my Lor 
and Master.’ The flames were kindled, and she 
with firmness, ‘leaving behind her a singular example of 


t Anne Askew’s narrative in Fowe, vol. v. p. 196. 


The Fires Rekindled 389 


_ Christian constancy for all men to follow.’ Three others, 
Lascelles, Adams, and Belenian, perished with her, greatly 
encouraged by her faith and fortitude. 

The cause of Gardiner was thus, it will be seen, again for 
the time in the ascendant. The fires of martyrdom were 
again rekindled ; and a proclamation, issued just before 
Anne’s death, prohibited the circulation of many of the 
_ works by Fryth, Tindale, Becon, Barnes, and others, 
which were most highly valued by the English Re- 
formers.* Elated by his success in striking down one 
so near the Court as Anne Askew, Gardiner aimed at a 
higher victim. The Queen was notoriously a favourer of 
the doctrines of the Reformation; she had, in spite of 
her wonted discretion, given offence to Henry by pre- 
suming to defend her own religious views ; ‘becoming 
a doctor,’ as he phrased it, ‘to instruct us, and not to be 
instructed of us.’ He was indignant at ‘women becom- 
ing such clerks,’ and at the prospect of being ‘ taught by 
his wife in his old age.’ 

Gardiner heard these words, and with Wriothesley and 
others of his party, he determined to strike terror into 
the Protestants of England, by procuring the death of 
the great patron of heresy. Catherine’s life hung by a 
thread ; but she was informed of her danger, and is said 
to have made her peace with her irritable lord by a piece 
of most ingenious flattery, assuring him that she had 
entered upon religious discussions with him, in order to 
obtain information from such a fountain of wisdom, and 
to beguile the pain and weariness of His Majesty’s illness. 
The plot recoiled upon the heads of the conspirators: 
Wriothesley was saluted ‘ beast, fool, knave,’ and Gardiner 
was struck out of the list of the Privy Council and of 
the King’s executors, and was forbidden to appear again 
in the royal presence. Thus the wise was at length taken 
in his own craftiness, and the crestfallen bishop had 

* See the list of prohibited books in Fowe, vol. p. 566, 


390 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


leisure for some years to reflect on the saying of 
wise man, ‘ Pride goeth before destruction, and a haug 
spirit before a fall.’? 

The other great head of the Romish party was te 
Duke of Norfolk; and that powerful family was next ° 
feel the weight tee Henry’s vengeance. A fectingaa of 
jealousy had for some time prevailed between this chief 
family of the English aristocracy, and the relatives 
of Jane Seymour whom Henry had ennobled. In this 
jealousy, daily increasing in rancour, Henry, naturally 
enough, perceived a danger that threatened the succes- 
sion of his son to the throne; and this fear once aroused, 
he was not likely to be slow in adopting precautions. 
Norfolk, and his illustrious son, the Earl of Surrey, we: 
arrested and sent to the Tower, charged with ‘conspi ing 
to take upon them the government of the kingdom durin 
His Majesty’s life, and to get the lord Prince into their 
hands after his death.’ 

The change was in all probability not without founda 
tion ; but it was one which it was clearly impossible 
substantiate. Henry’s illness, however, was threatening; 
and he was determined to lose no time. Surrey, as a 
commoner, was tried by special commission at Guildhall, 
on a trumpery charge of having assumed the armorial 
bearings of Edward the Confessor, thereby treasonably 
imperilling the established succession to the crown. The 
jury found him guilty, and on January 21, 1547, the axe 
of the executioner extinguished the flower of the poetry 
and chivalry of England. Norfolk, as a peer, had to be 
proceeded against in Parliament, by Bill of Attainder 
The most indecent haste was used in urging on the 
measure, for it was known that Henry was approachin gs 


Se 


* Froude thinks the whole story apocryphal; yet every contem- 
porary writer tells it. Maitland doubts it-see Reformati ion, Essa 
xv. ; and in fact it is a ‘leeing-like story’; also Essay xvi., Cardia 
and Paget. It seems to rest entirely on the authority of Lord Pag 
who was utlerly untrustworthy. 


[ 


E 


The Fires Rekindled 391 


his end. The Bill was introduced into the Lords on 
January 18, and was passed on the 2oth ; the Commons 
returned it on the 24th ; on the 27th the royal assent was 
given, and Norfolk’s execution was fixed for the next 
morning at daybreak. But before daybreak Henry had 
gone to his great account, and Parliament did not dare 
to proceed to the execution of the greatest subject in the 
realm. 

None of those about the King had the courage to warn 
him of his approaching dissolution until a few hours 
before his death. At last Sir Anthony Denny told him 
that all hope of human help was vain. ‘The King was 
loth to hear any mention of death, yet perceiving the 
same to rise upon the judgment of his physicians, and 
feeling his own weakness, he disposed himself more 
quietly to hearken to the words of his exhortation, and to 
consider his life past ; which, although he much accused, 
‘Yet,’ said he, ‘is the mercy of Christ able to pardon me 
all my sins, though they were greater than they be.’”* 

Denny suggested that some learned man should be sent 
for to confer with him ; but Henry said he would confer 
with no other but Cranmer, and not with him till he had 
reposed a little. Some hours after, Cranmer was sent for 
from Croydon, but Henry was too far gone to speak. He 
stretched out his hand to the Archbishop as he entered, 
and grasped him, ‘ but could utter no word unto him, and 
scarce was able to make any sign.’ Cranmer exhorted 
him to put his trust in Christ, and desired him to give 
some token with his eyes or his hand, that he trusted in 
the Lord: and Henry, ‘holding him with his hand, did 
wring his hand in his as hard as he could; and so, 
shortly after, departed.’! 

Henry’s reign extended over thirty-seven years and 
nine months, and is, beyond question, the most important 
in English history. His character has been debated for 


* Foxe, vol. v. p. 680, 


392 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


two centuries by historians; and yet, could we dive 
ourselves of our modern prejudices, it is, on the whole 
simple and easily read. That he was a man of strong 
will and fierce passions; that he was inclined to 

tyrannical ; that he was profusely extravagant ; that he 


and is not disputed by any of his biographers. 
to speak of him as ‘one who in ferocious tyranny 
oo as near perfection as human weakness wil 


tion bf the rhetorician. 

Henry was, strange as it seems to some, a popular king, 
beloved by his subjects; and the reason is not difficull 
to discover. That very policy which modern economis is 
reprehend as a tyrannical interference with the rights of 
the subjects, was what endeared him to his people ; the 
nobles and the wealthy felt the rigour of his government; 
but the poor and the weak, who found in him a protector, 
whose strong hand was able to repress the encroachments 
of the rich and the great, naturally loved and admired 
' him, as ‘the father of his country.’ His steady restraint 
of all freedom of opinion, and his resolute and lifelong 
effort to dictate the creed of his subjects, are altogether 
alient to our modern notions; but in Henry’s time they 
were considered, both by himself and his people, as the 
highest prerogative and the chief duty of a king. e 
condemn and shudder at his cruelty ; yet contemporaries 
not likely to flatter—Latimer, for example—speak highly 
of his courtesy and clemency. 

For generations, Romish writers have delighted 


Henry and the Reformation 393 


who had long sought for peace elsewhere in vain. Bilney 
had found peace and life in the declaration of St. Paul : 
‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I 
am chief ;’ and this God-given peace, Gonivacasiceteed by him 
to other aeaiens souls, proved the great source in England 
of that blessed movement, of which Henry was not the 
leader, but a wayward and somewhat reluctant follower. 
And in his whole connection with the English Reforma- 
tion Henry never appeared as leading and initiating, but 
rather as controlling and restraining, a movement with 
which he only partially sympathised. 

Beyond all question, however, Henry’s strong hand was 
of considerable service to the great cause: the restraint 
was galling, occasionally even to such men as Cranmer 
and Latimer, but it made the movement the act of the 
great body of the intelligent part of the nation, and not 
merely of a single religious section. The Reformation 
lost, for the time, in height, but it gained in breadth : 
without Henry’s controlling hand, a learned and zealous, 
but comparatively small section of the English Church, 
might have purged themselves more thoroughly of old 
Popish errors and abuses; his policy, by checking and 
restraining these leaders, multiplied the numbers of their 
followers, and gave to the Reformation a strength and a 
deep hold of the nation, which enabled it safely to 
weather the storms of the reign of Mary. However much 
we may censure his conduct towards his wives ; however 
much we may condemn the persecutions, the sanguinary 
violence, the many acts of legal murder which so deeply 
stain his reign (and no apology has been offered for any 
one of them in this narrative), no one who dispassionately 
considers his policy, or peruses the papers that proceeded 
from his pen, can fail to cherish a very high respect for 
one who was every inch a King, who was certainly one of | 
the greatest, and was by no means one of the worst | 
monarchs that have wielded the sceptre of England. 


394 From Latimer’s Resignation to 1547 


The Reformation, at the death of Henry, still wanted 
much to complete its purity in doctrine and ritual : more, 
however, had been accomplished in this reign, than has 
been always admitted by ecclesiastical historians. Instead 
of bewailing its deficiencies, we shall rather, with Henry’s- 
contemporaries, gratefully recognise its wonderful progress. — 
It was thus, for example,in tones of triumph, that Thomas — 
Becon wrote of what had been effected in Henry’s 
time.* i 
‘All false religion is now extirped and plucked up by q 
the roots. The miserable captivity, wherewith we were — 
oppressed in the Pope’s kingdom, is turned into delectable 
liberty. Our consciences are restored to their old freedom. 
Christ’s death is believed to be a sufficient sacrifice for 
them that are sanctified. All superstitious fantasies in-~ 
vented of idle brains are full godly put down. The 
famous images, wherewith the simple people committed 
fornication, I mean idolatry, are justly plucked down, and ~ 
conveyed out of the way. All the monastical sects have — 
put off their cowls and monstrous garments. Our most 
_ Christian King is now, according to the verity of God’s” 
Word, and His just and right title, recognised to be 
supreme head of the Church of England, next unde 
Christ, immediately here in earth. Moreover, ignorance — 
and blindness is exiled and banished; God’s laws are 
manifestly declared unto us ; so that we may, if we will, © 
keep His most godly commandments. The most sacred 
Bible is freely permitted to be read of every man in the 
English tongue. Many savour Christ aright, and daily 
the number increaseth; thanks be to God. Christ is~ 
believed to be the ene Saviour: and our sufficient 
Mediator and Advocate. The true and Christian faith, 
which worketh by charity, and is plenteous in good works, 
is now received to justify. The Twelve Articles of the 


* Pathway to Prayer. Published under the assumed name of 
Theodore Basil. 


What Had Been Won 395 


Christian Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Com- 
mandments, are now rehearsed in the English tongue, 
both of young and old ; so that now all understand them. 
Many of the ecclesiastical ceremonies are now right well 
taught and known. To conclude, all old things are past, 
and new things entered into the same place instead of 
them.’ 

Becon’s sketch may perhaps seem too warmly coloured ; 
but it was natural and almost laudable for him thus to 
write. Distant on-lookers who, without danger, behold 
the mortal fight, may coolly criticise its results, and hint 
dissatisfaction that so much has been left unaccomplished. 
The combatants, who have gained an unexpected victory 
out of the very jaws of death, may surely be excused if 
their gratitude for success utters itself in an exuberance of 
joy, which may seem altogether extravagant to critical and 
unimpassioned spectators. 


CHAPTER VII 


LATIMER UNDER KING EDWARD 


(1547-1553) 


HE death of Henry VIII. was kept secret for three days 
while Hertford and Sir William Paget were concocting 
their schemes. On January 31, however, it was publicly 
announced ; Edward, then in his tenth year, was a 


sued in reference to the Reformation. Their first act was 
decidedly a gain to the cause of the Reformers. They 


English history. A few days later, Wriothesley, 
396 


Ascession of Edward VI. 397 


savage Chancellor, was deprived of his office, and was 
ordered to confine himself within his own residence. 

There can be no doubt this was a very summary pro- 
cedure on the part of the other members of the Council ; 
and it is not the present writer’s intention to defend the 
legality of all the steps taken by the Reforming party in 
the Council during this reign. The cause of the Reforma- 
tion, and the great principles which it advocated, must be 
judged apart from the conduct of its adherents. The 
Reformers had long enough suffered under the iron hand 
of rigorous authority ; and it was not surprising if, now 
that they felt they had the power, they used it occasionally 
with somewhat arbitrary sharpness. To the petty attempts 
occasionally made to represent the general procedure of 
the Reformers, some of whom in this reign were mere 
political intriguers, as marked by the same sanguinary 
violence that characterised their opponents, the reign 
of Edward furnishes an unanswerable reply. If the 
Reformers were guilty of some slight encroachments on 
the legal privileges of a few of their chief enemies, they 
did not at all events imbrue their hands in blood or crowd 
Smithfield with victims. With supreme authority in their 

ly hands for six years, not one of their most inveterate foes ~ 
was consigned to the scaffold or the flames. 

All waited with anxiety to see how the Council would 
treat the great question of the day—the progress of the 
Reformation. The friends of the Romish religion were 
already discouraged by the advancement of Somerset, and 
the fall of Wriothesley, their great lay champion. The 
Reformers were full of hope. Their party seemed in the 
ascendant. The young King was believed to be devotedly 
attached to their doctrines ; and it was known to a few 
that even Henry had meditated a further purification of 
religion, which he had only been prevented from carrying 
into execution by his unexpected death. The Council 


* See the important statement of Morice, Cranmer’s Secretary, in 
Foxe, vol. v. p. 562, etc. 


398 Latimer under King Edward a 


were, however, too deliberate in their movements, for th 
more zealous Reformers, who did not wait till the voic 
of the authorities was distinctly heard. , 

On February 10, before Henry was buried, the church 
wardens and curates of St. Martin’s Church, in Ironmonge 
Lane, London, were brought before the Council for hav 
pulled down the images of saints and the crucifix o 
the rood screen. Their offence was copiously discussed, 
and a mitigated sentence was pronounced, which was at 
once construed as an intimation of the course the Council 
were likely to pursue in reference to the Reformation.* 
Other signs of the direction in which the current wa 
setting were not wanting. Ridley, who now began to rise 
into that importance which his learning and character 
merited, preached before the Court on Ash-Wednesday 
(February 23), and denounced the use of images and of 
holy water, as tending to perpetuate superstition and 
idolatry in the Church. In the provinces, too, there were 
the same indications of coming events. In Portsmouth, 


down and spitcfally handled,? to the great indignation fe of 
Gardiner, the bishop of the dioceses : 

Latimer had been released from his imprisonment in 
the Tower by the general pardon, proclaimed, as usual, on 
the day of the King’s coronation. Another occupied his 
bishopric, a trimming prelate, little worthy to fill the seal 
that Latimer had once occupied; but Latimer was neo 
anxious to be restored to his former honours. Age and 


was little qualified by temperament for successfully 
conducting the strategic diplomacy of a bishop in those 
troublous times, but that God had specially endowed him 
as a preacher of the Gospel rather than as an adminis- 


* Council Book ; Additional MSS., British Museum, No. 14,024. 
2 Gardiner’s Letters in F oxe, vol. vv. p. 26, etc. 


Latimer again Preaching 399 


trator of ecclesiastical affairs; and, therefore, though 
solicited to resume his see, though entreated even by the 
House of Commons to return to it, he preferred to remain 
henceforth in private life. He continued a quondam, as 
he used humorously to call himself ; thanking God that he 
had come by his quondamship by honest means; and 
reverenced by the people all the more that, in an 
avaricious age, he had voluntarily declined the tempting 
offers of wealth and honour. ‘He was better fitted for 
the pulpit than for the consistory,’ Heylyn has remarked 
with truth ; and in the reign of Edward he did more real 
service to the Church in England by his occasional 
labours as a preacher, than he had done by the ceaseless 
anxieties of his episcopate under Henry. He had already 
been renowned for his eloquence as a preacher ; his mag- 
nificent sermon before Convocation had touched the 
deepest chords in the hearts of his countrymen ; but now 
everything conspired to make him more than ever the 
great preacher of the day, the admiration of almost all 
classes of English people. 

Wherever he preached crowded audiences hung upon 
his lips. ‘The character of the man,’ says one of his 
bitterest modern enemies, Dr. Lingard, ‘the boldness of 
his invectives, his quaint but animated eloquence, were 
observed to make a deep impression on the minds of his 
hearers.’* When he preached before the Court it was 
found necessary to erect a pulpit in the King’s garden, in 
order to provide accommodation for the multitudes that 
thronged to hear him; and on one occasion, when he 
preached in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, the 
crowd was so great that the pews were broken in pieces. 
In fact, whoever were the guides in the movement, 
Latimer was looked upon by the people as the true apostle 
of the English Reformation, and was recognised by all, 
not only as the unsparing enemy of the errors and super- 


* Lingard’s History of England, vol. vii. p. 33. 


400 Latimer under King Edward 


stitions of the Romish Church, but even more than this, 
the stern denouncer of the social vices and sins of the a 
For his sermons partook of that general character of hi 
mind, which we have so often had occasion to notice. It 


of the theological teaching of the English Reformer a 
Latimer refers only occasionally, and never very fully or 
systematically, to his doctrinal tenets. The practical 
abuses of the Romish faith, the lying miracles, the 
debasing superstitions of that Church, the perversion of 
justice, the disregard of the legal rights of the poor, the 
corruption of morals, the tyranny of the nobles, the 
dishonesty of the traders, the indolent pride and luxury of 
the dignitaries of the Church—such were the ch 
subjects which Latimer handled in his discourses, w 
that plain, picturesque, shrewd humour and honesty which 
carried his words home to the hearts of his hearers. 

Such a man was a power in the State as well as a pillar 
of the Church. The poor looked up to him as the 
Israelites did to their prophets, as a protector raised up by 
Divine Providence to shield their weakness from the 
rapacity and tyranny of the rich and noble. He resid 
frequently with Cranmer at Lambeth, and crowds 
supplicants resorted to him to entreat his aid. He co 
not go to his book, as he tells us, for poor folks coming 
him, victims of the ‘law’s delay,’ entreating him to use 
influence to secure a hearing for their cases. ‘I am n 
sooner in the garden,’ says he in one of the charming 
autobiographic sketches, happily so frequent in- 
sermons, ‘and have read awhile, but by-and-by come 
there some one or other knocking at the gate. An 
cometh my man’ [Augustine Bernher, his faithful Sw 
servant], ‘and saith, ‘Sir, there is one at the gate 
would speak with you.” When I come there, then 
some one or other that desireth me that I will speak that 


Reformation Resumed 401 


his matter might be heard’ ;* and turning to the Protector 
who was present, he entreated him for the love of God to 
see justice promptly administered, and not provoke Divine 
indignation by neglecting the suits of the poor. 

Latimer had been forbidden to preach, it will be 
remembered, by Henry VIII.in 1540. The same supreme 
authority that had closed his lips could alone open them; 
and in 1547 a licence under the ecclesiastical seal restored 
to him the privilege of preaching in any part of England.? 
.When we come to consider the proceedings of 1548 our 
attention will be largely occupied with Latimer’s public 
appearance once more as a great preacher ; meantime a 
brief survey must first be taken of the progress of the 
Reformation in 1547. 

The Council had at length organized their plan for 
proceeding with the Reformation. They resolved to act 
in the same spirit that Henry had adopted, not urging on 
matters with violent haste, but advancing slowly and 
cautiously, so as not to excite public commotions, and if 
possible to secure the adhesion of the great bulk of the 
people. A book of twelve Homilies was compiled, treat- 
ing of the use of Scripture, the nature of faith, man’s 
misery by sin and redemption by Christ, and similar 
subjects ;3 with the hope of purging the minds of the 
people from the errors and superstitions which had so 
long been taught among them. Some of these were com- 
posed by Cranmer ; and it has been frequently asserted 
that Latimer also had a share in their composition. Such 
a tradition is not altogether incredible ; there is, however, 
no specific evidence in its favour, nor has any critic under- 
taken to assign any of the homilies to Latimer as 
possessing any indubitable or even probable marks of his 

* Latimer’s Sermons, p. 127. 

? State Paper Office, Edward VI., vol. ii. No. 34. Paper, entitled 
‘The names of certain persons that have had licence to preach under 


the ecclesiastical seal since July, in Anno, 1547.’ 
3 Printed by Grafton, July 31, 1547. 


26 


_ 


402 Latimer under King Edward 


authorship. Able and eloquent preachers, also, wh 
zeal for the doctrines of the Reformation was beyond 
question, such as Latimer, Taylor, Parker, and others 
were licensed to preach in any part of the kingdom, by the 
direct authority of the sovereign; and thus, a second 
method, more efficacious than the circulation of homilies, 
was provided for the instruction of all the King’s subjects. 
For the voice of the living preacher was more likely to 
touch the hearts of the hearers, and could not be seo : 


derisively called, hight easily be rendered inaudible or 
inoperative. tees told King Edward, in his al 
quaint way, how the homilies were sometimes handled. 
‘Though the priest read them never so well, yet if th 


it, that it were as good for them to be without it, for any 
word that shall be understood.’ ? 4 

It was also determined to institute a general visitation of 
the kingdom ; and injunctions were drawn up by the 
Council for the guidance of the visitors. The clergy were 
directed to observe carefully all the laws formerly made 
for abolishing the Bishop of Rome’s pretended juris- 
diction, and for establishing the Royal Supremacy. O 
these subjects they were to preach at least four times a 
year ; and they were moreover to teach their flocks tha 
‘all goodness, health, and grace ought to be asked from 


faith, mercy, and charity, and to discourage all wandering 
to pilgrimages, offering of tapers, praying upon beads, and 
such-like superstitions. Images that had been abused 
with pilgrimage or offerings were to be taken down. A 
chapter of the New Testament was to be publicly read in 
church every Sunday morning; one of the Old in th 


* Sermons, p. 121. 


Progress 403 


afternoon ; and for the common benefit of the people, a 
copy of Erasmus’s Paraphrase on the Gospels was to be 
provided in every church. There were to be no more 
processions round churches and churchyards, but the 
English Litany (originally intended to be said in proces- 
sion) was to be said in the midst of the church before high 
mass. Holy-days were not to be spent in debauchery and 
idleness, but in works of piety and charity ; and in harvest- 
time they might be employed in the necessary labours of 
the season. All ceremonies not yet abrogated were to be 
observed ; no one was obstinately or maliciously to under- 
rate them ; yet all were to be warned that even lawful 
ceremonies might be superstitiously debased to the peril of 
their soul’s health. The Bishops were also ordered to see 
these injunctions duly observed in their dioceses ; they 
were themselves to preach four times a year, unless they 
had a reasonable excuse; they were to cause their 
chaplains to preach, and were to exercise great care in 
admitting any to orders, or in allowing any to teach 
against the doctrines of the homilies.? 

All these, it will be seen, were steps in the right direc- 
tion. The provisions were in themselves unexceptionable ; 
it was only to be feared that they might be slow in their 
operation, and that many years might elapse before the 
Church of England would be thoroughly brought under 
their influence. One grand abuse still remained untouched 
—the mass; but even against this great stronghold of 
Romish infallibility, designs were already entertained by 
some of the Council, the results of which we shall pre- 
sently see. 

The preparations completed, the visitors were sent out 
on their task in the end of August, just about the time 
when the Protector was on his march to Scotland, in the 
vain attempt to compel the Scots by his rough wooing to 


* The injunctions are printed in Foxe, vol. v. p. 706, etc, and 
frequently elsewhere. 


404 Latimer under King Edward 


consent to the marriage of their infant Queen with the 
young Sovereign of England; and it was remarked 
the more zealous Reformers, that on the very day in wh 
most of the images in London were removed and 4 
troyed by the visitors, the English army Sei 
memorable victory of Pinkie: 4 

It was not to be expected that these proceedings would 
pass unopposed. Bonner protested that he would observe 
the injunctions and homilies if they were not ‘repugna 
to God’s law and the statutes of this Church’ ; but being 
brought before the Council he, ‘upon better consideration,’ 
renounced and revoked his protestation, and entreated 
pardon. His offence was forgiven, but ‘in respect of 
the evil ensample’ that he had given, he was sent for a 
short time to the Fleet. Gardiner, too, was brought 
before the Council, and with greater courage than his 


promise an implicit reception of the injunctions; he 
protested against the homilies as contrary to Scripture, 
and objected to the accuracy of the version of Erasmus’s 


there for seven weeks, beguiling his leisure by writir 
long and ingenious controversial letters to the Protector. 
Gardiner’s conduct was, on the whole, dignified and 


were certainly summary and harsh, and would have been 
condemned by posterity had they not been completely 
thrown into the shade by his own fierce and vindictive 
violence in the next reign. . 

The Parliament assembled in November, and their 


* Burnet, vol. v. p. 162, from the Council Book. 


St. Paul’s Cross 405 


legislation contributed essentially to the progress of the 
Reformation. All the cruel laws of Henry VIII. were 
formally repealed ; the bloody statute of the Six Articles, 
already mitigated, was now abolished ; the sanguinary 
additions to the treason acts, and even the old enactments 
against the Lollards were all swept away: for the 
Reformation, if it did not at once proclaim and practise 
perfect toleration, at all events signalised its accession to 
power by the removal of all the persecuting laws from 
the Statute Book. 

Another step still more decidedly in advance was taken 
in the reformation of the mass. The great body of the 
English Reformers were not yet prepared to abandon the 
incomprehensible dogmas which they had been taught 
from their infancy ; yet they were at least convinced that 
the rights of the laity in the holy sacrament had been 
infringed, and it was plain to all who could read Scripture 
‘that the Lord’s Supper was intended to be a communion, 
and not a solitary act of the priest. It was ordered, 

therefore, that in future this sacrament should be adminis- 

tered in both kinds; and that the priest who celebrated 
should not deny the ordinance to any one who devoutly 
and humbly desired it. Thus the first breach was made 
in that charmed circle which had hitherto surrounded the 
mass as with an impregnable rampart ; and there was 
every reason to hope that still bolder advances might be 
made in succeeding years. 

With 1548 Latimer’s active career as a preacher was 
resumed. ‘On January 1,’ says Stow, in his chronicle, 
‘Doctor Latimer preached at Paul’s Cross, which was the 
first sermon by him preached in almost eight years before ; 
for at the making of the Six Articles, he, being Bishop of 
Worcester, would not consent unto them, and therefore 
was commanded to silence, and gave up his bishopric. 
He also preached at Paul’s Cross on January 8, where he 
affirmed that whatsoever the clergy commanded ought to 


406 Latimer under King Edward 


be obeyed ; but he also declared that the’ [true] ‘c 
are such as sit in Moses’ chair and break not their Mas 
commandment, adding nothing thereto nor taking a 
thing therefrom ; and such a clergy must be obeyed 
all men, both high and low. He also preached at Pa 
on the fifteenth and on the twenty- -ninth of _Janua 


series of sermons than appears in the meagre summary 
of the simple chronicler. The last of the four has been 


style of preaching. The train of thought is more con- 
tinuously sustained than in most of his sermons, while 
there is the same earnestness, the same honest condemna- 
tion, not of errors in opinion merely, but of sins in action, 
the same wit, the same quaint felicity of expression, the 
same power of apt and familiar illustration, the same 
discursiveness when any practical duty could be enforced, 
that mark all his best sermons. These were the virtues 
that charmed his audience in those days; and three 
centuries have not deprived them of their power to touch 
all honest and intelligent readers. The Sermon of the 
Plough has been so frequently reprinted as to be almos' 
hackneyed ; yet in a biography of Latimer it would be 
inexcusable to omit altogether some extracts from so 
characteristic a specimen of his eloquence as a preacher. 

‘I liken preaching,’ said he in his homely way, ‘to a 
ploughman’s labour, and a prelate to a ploughman. But 
now you will ask me whom I call a prelate. A prelate is” 
that man, whosoever he be, that hath a flock to be taught 
of him; whosoever hath any spiritual charge in the faith- 
ful congregation, and whosoever he be that hath cure of 
souls. And well may the preacher and the ploughman be : 
likened together : first, for their labour at all seasons of 
the year; for there is no time of the year in which the 


Preacher and Ploughman 407 


ploughman hath not some special work to do: as in my 
country, in Leicestershire, the ploughman hath a time to 
set forth and to assay his plough, and other times for 
other necessary works to be done. And then they also 
may be likened together for the diversity of works and 
variety of offices that they have to do. For as the 
ploughman first setteth forth his plough, and then tilleth 
his land, and breaketh it in furrows, and sometime ridgeth 
it up again ; and at another time harroweth it and clotteth 
it, and sometime dungeth it and hedgeth it, diggeth it and 
weedeth it, purgeth and maketh it clean ; so the prelate, 
the preacher, hath many diverse offices to do. He hath 
first a busy work to bring his parishioners to a right 
faith, as Paul calleth it, and not a swerving faith ; to a 
faith that embraceth Christ and trusteth to His merits ; a 
lively faith, a justifying faith, a faith that maketh a man 
righteous, without respect of works, as ye have it very 
weli declared and set forth in the Homily’ [that Homily 
on Faith, viz., which Gardiner had condemned]. ‘He 
hath then a busy work, I say, to bring his flock to a right 
faith, and then to confirm them in the same faith ; now 
casting them down with the law, and with threatenings of 
God for sin; now ridging them up again with the Gospel, 
and with the promises of God’s favour; now weeding 
them, by telling them their faults, and making them for- 
sake sin; now clotting them, by breaking their stony 
hearts, and by making them supple-hearted, and making 
them to have hearts of flesh, that is, soft hearts, and apt 
for doctrine to enter in; now teaching to know God 
rightly, and to know their duty to God and their neigh- 
bours ; now exhorting them, when they know their duty, 
that they do it, and be diligent in it ; so that they havea 
continual work to do. Great is their business, and there- 
fore great should be their hire. They have great labours, 
and therefore they ought to have good livings, that they 
may commodiously feed their flock ; for the preaching of 


408 Latimer under King Edward 


the Word of God unto the people is called meat : Scrip 
ture calleth it meat, not strawberries that come but on 

year, and tarry not long, but are soon gone: but - 
meat, it is no dainties. The people must have meat 
must be familiar, and continual, and daily given unto the 
to feed upon. Many make a straws of it, ministering 
it but once a year, but such do not the office of good | 
prelates. For Christ saith, “ Who think you is a wise and 
a faithful servant? He that giveth meat in due time.” 
So that he must at all times convenient preach diligently : 
therefore saith He, ‘‘ Who trow ye is a faithful servant ?” 
He speaketh it as though it were a rare thing to find such 
a one, and as though He should say, there be but a few of 
them to find in the world. And how few of them there 
be throughout this realm that give meat to their flock as 
they should do, the Visitors can best tell’ [those appointec 
by the late injunctions]. ‘Too few, too few ; the more is 
the pity, and never so few as now! . :, 
‘ How then hath it happened that we have had so many 


loiterers, and idle ministers? Ye would have me here to 
make answer, and to show the cause thereof. Nay, this” 
land is not for me to plough: it is too stony, too thorny, 
too hard for me to plough. They have so many things 
that make for them, so many things to lay for themselves, 
that it is not for my weak team to plough them. They 
have to lay for themselves long customs, ceremonies and 
authority, placing in parliament, and many things more. 
And I fear me this land is not yet ripe to be ploughed: 
for, as the saying is, it lacketh weathering: this gear 
lacketh weathering: at least way it is not for me to 
plough. For what shall I look for among thorns, : 
pricking and scratching? What among stones but stumb- 
ling ? at, I had almost said, among serpents, but 
stinging? But this much I dare say, that since lording 


and loitering hath come up, preaching hath come down, 


‘The Most Diligent Preacher’ 409 


contrary to the apostles’ time: for they’ [the apostles] 
‘preached and lorded not, and now they’ [Latimer’s 
contemporaries] ‘lord and preach not. For they that be 
lords will ill go to plough: it is no meet office for 
them ; it is not seeming for their estate. Thus came up 
lording loiterers: thus crept in unpreaching prelates ; 
and so have theylong continued. For how many unlearned 
prelates have we now at this day! And no marvel: for 
if the ploughmen that now be were made lords, they 
would clean give over ploughing : they would leave off 
their labour, and fall to lording outright, and let the 
plough stand : and then both ploughs not walking, nothing 
should be in the commonweal but hunger.’ 

These were bold words, such as no preacher had ever 
before ventured to use; but even these were outdone, 
when Latimer warming with the excitement of his subject, 
launched out into that famous flow of indignant eloquence, 
which has always been considered as one of the most 
magnificent achievements of English oratory. 

‘And now I would ask a strange question: Who is the 
most diligentest bishop and prelate in all, England, that 
passeth all the rest in doing his office?’ I can tell, for 
I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think 
I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. 
There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most 
diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will 
ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. 
He is the most diligent preacher of all other : he is never 
out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall 
never find him unoccupied ; he is ever in his parish ; he 
keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him 
out of the way ; call for him when you will he is ever at 
home, the diligentest preacher in all the realm ; he is ever 
at his plough ; no lording or loitering can hinder him; he 
is ever applying his business : ye shall never find him idle 
I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to 


410 Latimer under King Edward 


deface and bigseure God’s glory. When the devil is resi- 
dent and hath his plough going, there away with bo : 
and up with candles; away with Bibles, and up with 
beads ; away with the light of the Gospel, and up with - 
the light of the candles, yea, at noon-days. Where e 
devil is resident that he may prevail, up with all super- 
stition and idolatry, censing, painting of images, candles, 
palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men’s invent- 
ing, as though man could invent a better way to honour 
God with than God Himself hath appointed : down with 
Christ’s cross, up with purgatory-pick-purse, up with him, 
the Popish purgatory, I mean: away with clothing the — 
naked, the poor and impotent ; up with decking of images, 
and gay garnishing of stocks and stones: up with man’s 
traditions and his laws ; down with God’s traditions and — 
His most Holy Word. Down with the old honour due to 
God, and up with the new god’s honour. Let all things — 
be done in Latin; there must be nothing but Latin, not so 
much as memento homo quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris, 
“ Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes thou ~ 
shalt return,” which be the-words that the minister 
speaketh unto the ignorant people, when he giveth them 
ashes upon Ash- Wednesday ; but it must be spoken in — 
Latin, God’s Word may in no wise be translated into a 
English. 

‘Oh that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the 
corn of good doctrine, as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel! — 
And this is the degdich ploughing, the which worketh to 
have things in Latin, and letteth’ [hindereth] ‘the fruitful — 
edification. . pied never was such a preacher in 
England as i is. Whois able to tell his diligent preach- 4 
ing, which every day and every hour, laboureth to sow 
cockle and darnel, that he may bring oud of form and out © 


The One Sacrifice All 


of estimation and room, the institution of the Lord’s 
Supper and Christ’s cross? .. . This is the mark at the 
which the devil shooteth, to evacuate’ [make of no effect] 
‘the cross of Christ, and to mingle’ [confuse] ‘the insti- 
tution of the Lord’s Supper: and these fifteen hundred 
years he hath been a doer, only purposing to evacuate 
Christ’s death, and to make it of small efficacy and virtue. 
For whereas Christ, according as the serpent was lifted up 
in the wilderness, so would He Himself be exalted, that 
thereby as many as trusted in Him should have salvation ; 
but the devil would none of that : they’ [the Romanists] 
‘would have us saved by a daily oblation propitiatory, by 
a sacrifice expiatory, or remissory. But Christ is a con- 
tinual sacrifice in effect, fruit, operation and virtue; as 
though He had from the beginning of the world, and 
continually should to the world’s end, hang still on the 
cross; and He is as fresh hanging on the cross now, to 
them that believe and trust in Him, as He was fifteen 
hundred years ago, when He was crucified. Then let us 
trust upon His only death, and look for none other 
sacrifice propitiatory, than the same bloody sacrifice, the 
lively sacrifice ; and not the dry sacrifice, but a bloody 
sacrifice. . . . What have we to do then but to eat in the 
Lord at His Supper? What other service have we to do 
to Him, and what other sacrifice have we to offer but 
the mortification of our flesh? What other oblation have 
we to make but of obedience, of good living, of good 
works, and of helping our neighbours ? But as for our 
redemption, it is done already, it cannot be better : Christ 
hath done that thing so well, that it cannot be amended. 
It cannot be devised how to make that any better than He 
hath done it. But the devil, by the help of that Italian 
bishop yonder, his chaplain, hath laboured by all means 
that he might, to frustrate the death of Christ and the 
merits of His passion. And they have devised for that 
purpose to make us believe in other vain things by his 


412 Latimer under King Edward k. 


pardons; as to have remission of sins for praying 
hallowed beads ; for drinking of the bakehouse bowl, 
canon of Waltham Abbey once told me, that whenso 
they put their loaves of bread into the oven, as many 
drank of the pardon-bowl should have pardon for drinki 
of it. A mad thing to give pardon to a bowl! to Pope 
Alexander's holy water, to hallowed bells, palms, candles, 
ashes, and what not! And of these things every one hath 
taken away some part of Christ’s sanctification ; every one 
hath robbed some part of Christ’s passion wail cross, and 
hath mingled Christ’s death, and hath been made tos be 
propitiatory and Picea and to put away sin... . 
Wo worth thee, O devil, that hast prevailed to evacuate 
Christ’s cross, and to mingle the Lord’s Supper’... 
Words like these would stir the hearts of men even in 
the dullest and most commonplace days; and in a time 
of fierce controversy and wild religious excitement these 
sermons of Latimer shook the whole land. No more 
effectual instrument could be employed for preparing the 
minds of the people for a further purification of the 
abuses that were still left, and for weakening the hold 
which the old faith still retained over the belief and the 
imagination of a large portion of the population. Dry 
logic and correct exegesis might fall idle upon the mind ; 
but words like Latimer’s carried force and conviction 
with them. It will not have escaped the observation of 
the careful reader that Latimer’s long seclusion from 
public labours had materially assisted in purging his own 
creed from many superstitious notions, which he had 
formerly been willing to tolerate as harmless, but which 
he now emphatically denounced as ist truth ‘ robbing some. 
part of Christ’s passion and cross.’ More than this, the © 
extracts here given show plainly that his opinions on the 
subject of the mass had undergone a mighty change ; 
transubstantiation he still, fora few months longer, main-— 


tained ; but that grand Romish invention which made the ~ 
ie 


aa 


\ ZB 


‘a 
a 


Potent Sermons 413 


mass a propitiatory sacrifice, and which had invested it 
with so much awe and sanctity, he discarded as a plain 
‘frustrating of the cross with Christ.’ 

Such sermons could not be like water spilt upon the 
ground: what comfort and peace and edification they 
ministered to many perplexed hearts cannot be estimated ; 
but they have left a plain broad mark on the history of 
England. He had denounced the superstitious regard for . 
hallowed candles : on Candlemas-day of the year after his 
sermon, ‘candles were left off’ by proclamation of the 
Council. He had ridiculed the reverence for ‘ hallowed 
palms’: on Palm-Sunday it was forbidden to carry palms. 
He had specially laughed at the solemn ceremony of giving 
ashes on Ash-Wednesday: on Ash-Wednesday the cere- 
mony was disused. He had condemned images : and the 
Council issued a peremptory order that all images should 
be removed from churches, whether they had been abused 
to superstitious purposes or not. He had characterised 
the use of an unknown Latin tongue in the service of the 
Church as a signal proof of the influence of the devil, and 
in March there was issued by royal authority an ‘ Order 
of the Communion’ in the English language," retaining, it 
is true, the rites and ceremonies of the mass, yet promising 
a future reformation even of these, and embodying the 
substance of those pious exhortations which still remain as 
the chief beauty of the English Communion Service. 
Some of these changes may have been suggested by 
Latimer’s preaching ; all of them were unquestionably 
promoted and facilitated by the great influence which his 
eloquence gave him over the people. 

. There was not in England at that time a more ardent 
lover of the Reformation than the young King, and it was 
natural that the great preacher whose burning words had 
so animated the minds of the common people should be 


* It is printed entire in Liturgies of Edward VI., published by the 
Parker Society. 


AI4 Latimer under King Edward 


asked to preach before the Court. Ample provision 
made for the audience which the fame of the preac 
eloquence was expected to draw together, as will be | 
from the words of the old chronicler whom we | 
already quoted. ‘The seventh of March, being Wedn 
day, was a pulpit set up in the King’s privy-garden 
Westminster, and therein Doctor Latimer preached before 
the King, where he might be heard of more than four 
times so many people as could have stood in the Kin 
chapel, and this was the first sermon preached there” ‘In 
the same place of the inward garden,’ says Foxe, ‘ which 
was before applied to lascivious and courtly pastimes, 
there Latimer dispensed the fruitful word of the glorious” 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, preaching there before the King 
and his whole Court, to the edification of many.’* The 


a 


which Latimer, standing on an architectural erties and 
surrounded on all sides by a sea of heads, addresses himself 
especially to the young. King, who listens from a window 
of the palace. Bi, 

To us who have followed Latimer in his whole career as 
a preacher it is unnecessary to prove that his sermon, or 
series of sermons (for he preached all the Wednesdays 
in Lent), would be carefully suited to the character of his — 
audience. When he preached at Paul’s Cross, before an — 
audience mainly clerical, he naturally animadverted upon 
the faults and vices of the clergy of his day: and at 
Westminster, before an audience of courtiers, he, as 
naturally, would make the sins and vices of the rich and 
great his chief themes. His sermons, on this occasion, — 
before the Court have not been preserved, less fortunate 
in this respect than those of the succeeding Lent; 
know their great subject, however, and are not altoget. 
ignorant of their results. ‘The first Lent that I prea che 

* Foxe, vol. vii, p. 463. 


A Bold Preacher 415 


here,’ says Latimer in the last sermon he delivered before 
the Court in 1550, ‘I preached restitution. It was a 
favourite theme with Latimer, and we know well how he 
would treat it, for he often recurs to it in his sermons that 
have been preserved. 

Thus, in one of his sermons on the Lord’s Prayer he 
makes the following terse remarks :—‘ You will say, What 
shall we do with the goods gotten by unlawful means ? 
Marry, I tell you make restitution, which is the only way 
that pleaseth God. I tell you, none of them which have 
taken their neighbour’s goods from him by any manner of 
falsehood, none of them, I say, shall be saved, except they ~ 
make restitution, either in affect’ [intention] ‘or effect : 
in effect, when they be able; in affect, when they be not 
able in no wise. For unlawful goods ought to be restored 
again : without restitution look not for salvation.’ ? 

Only a bold preacher would have ventured on a doctrine 
so certain to be unpalatable to an audience, almost every 
one of whom had stained his hands with ill-gotten goods : 
and we may rest assured that the preacher did not 
extenuate the guilt of peculation or sacrilege, or represent 
restitution as a duty of a secondary nature which might 
without sin be omitted or postponed. His sermons, of | 
course, gave offence. 

‘“ Restitution,” said some’ (to resume Latimer’s own 
account of the matter); ‘‘‘what should he preach of 
restitution ? Let him preach of contrition,’ quoth they, 
“and let restitution alone ; we can never make restitution.” 
Then,’ added the stern preacher, ‘if thou wilt not make 
restitution, thou shalt go to the devil for it. Now choose 
thee either restitution, or else endless damnation. There 
be two manner of restitutions ; secret restitution, and open 
restitution ; whether of both it be, so that restitution be 
made, it is all good enough. At my first preaching of 
restitution, one good man took remorse of conscience, and 

* Latimer’s Sermons, p. 404. 


416 Latimer under King Edward 
acknowledged himself to me that he had deceived 


first Lent came to my hands twenty pounds to be rest 
to the King’s use. I was promised twenty pound more 
the same Lent, but it could not be made, so that it 
not. Well, the next Lent came three hundred and 
pounds more; I received it myself and paid it to tht 
King’s Council. . . . Well, now this Lent came one 
hundred and fourscore pounds ten shillings, which I have 
paid and delivered this day to the King’s Council.’ * % 
The person here’ alluded to by Latimer as having be 
so deeply impressed by his sermons on restitution, was t 
famous martyr, John Bradford. This has been sometim 
called in question ; but Bradford’s own writings place 
absolutely beyond all doubt. Bradford had been employ: 
abroad during the French wars, and had in some way or ot 
been implicated in a transaction by which the King was 
defrauded of a considerable sum of money. He was in 
London in the spring of 1548, his mind deeply impressed 
and anxious for a full knowledge of the truth of the 
Gospel. In such circumstances Latimer’s sermons struck 
him to the heart; and he went to the preacher to ask 


duty of restitution. By Latimer’s advice, he wrote to the 
person under whom he had served abroad, and who had 
been chiefly concerned in the fraud, and warned him that 
unless restitution was made, he would surrender to 


t The following are the entries in the Council Book:—‘28 March, 
1549. This day Sir Michael Stanhope, Knight, by commandment a’ 
order of the Lord Protector’s Grace and Council, received of Mr, 
Latymer of such the King’s money as came of concealment and 
now delivered by the exhortation of the said Mr. Latymer, the sum of 
£323 pounds.’ 

‘Monday, 10 March, 1550. Mr. Doctor Latymer brought in £ 
into the Council Chamber which he had recovered of one that 
concealed the same from the King’s Majesty.’—British Muse 
Additional MSS. 14,024, and 14,025. 


Conscience Money 417 


_ Council. A satisfactory arrangement was concluded, the 
_ result of which was that Latimer, as he states, received 
twenty pounds of conscience money in Lent, 1548, three 
hundred and twenty pounds in Lent, 1549, and one hundred 
and eighty pounds ten shillings in Lent, 1550, which he 
paid over to the Council.: His influence over Bradford 
did not terminate here ; for he was not only, to use Fuller’s 
quaint words, the ‘ corban or treasury into which restored 
ill-gotten goods were cast,’ but was also ‘ confessor-general 
to all Protestants troubled in mind.’ He saw Bradford’s 
eminent qualifications for the work of the Christian ministry, 
for which it was then so desirable to procure suitable 
labourers ; and it was by his advice, we may conclude, that 
Bradford determined to leave London for Cambridge, and 
prepare himself by assiduous study for the work of a minister 
of Christ’s Gospel. Of his eminent success, his piety, his 
resolution, his glorious faithfulness even unto death, we 
need not speak ; his name and his history are still held in 
honour by all Englishmen. If Latimer’s Lenten sermons 
did no more than gain over Bradford to the cause of the 
Reformation and the practice of true godliness, they would 
be for ever memorable in the history of the English 
Reformation. 

One other incident connected with these sermons has 
been preserved to us in a somewhat unexpected manner. 
It was customary for the sovereign to present to the 
preacher on such an occasion, a sum of money by way of 
compliment, or honorarium. We have already seen 
Latimer thus rewarded by Henry; but Edward was 
scantily supplied with money by his uncle Somerset, and 
neither knew what to give Latimer, nor where to procure 
the necessary reward. This enforced poverty of the 
young King had not escaped the notice of his other uncle, 
the Lord Seymour (who had married Catherine Parr with 
indecorous haste two months after Henry’s death) ; and it 

* Latimer’s Sermons, p. 262 ; Bradford’s letters, in Foxe, vol. vii. 


27 


yeh 


418 Latimer under King Edward — 


was at once turned to advantage by that ambitious 
man, who was plotting to deprive his brother of his po 
Seymour, accordingly, through some of his creatt 
granted Edward liberal supplies of money ; his liberality 
costing him nothing, as his purse was well stocked by 
reprehensible practices. Shortly after Latimer had finis 
his course of sermons, the following brief note, penne 
the young King, ona shabby scrap of paper, was forwardec 
to Seymour :— 


‘My Lorp,—Send me for Latimeras much as ye think 
good, and deliver it to Fowler’ [the go-between]. y 
‘ EDWARD.’ * 


In the ordinary course of things the reply to this very 
laconic request would not have been preserved, for 
course no record was kept of expenses supplied from suck 
clandestine sources. Next spring, however, Seymour was 
attainted of treason ; his habit of giving money to corru 
the King’s servants was one of the articles against | 
and he admitted that ‘what time Mr. Latymer prea 
before the King, the King sent to know what he should 
give Mr. Latymer, and he sent him £40, with this wo rd, 
that £20 was a good reward for Mr. Latymer, and t 
other he might bestow among his servants’? Tw 


who had not, at this time, so far as can be ascertaine 
any regular source of income. ‘Not that he was 
bare,’ according to ‘the loud lie of Parsons ;’ 3 the Cou 
in 1549, in recognition of his services in recovering 
money of which the King had been defrauded, appoint 
£50 of the recovered money ‘to be paid to him by way 


® State Paper Office : printed also by Tytler, vol. i. p. 112. 7 
® Seymour’s Answers to the Articles ; Council Book. ¥ 
3 Fuller, Church History. 


Trying Heretics 419 


of the King’s reward ;’! and this sum would long supply 
his simple wants. Cranmer’s purse would also, of course, 
be open to him, as his heart and his palace were ; and 
there were many other kind friends who would gladly 
minister to his necessities. At all events, he himself 
declares on this subject, ‘I thank God and the King, I 
have sufficient.’ ‘I have enough, and I need not beg; I 
would every preacher were as well provided as myself 
through this realm.’ 

In April of this year we find Latimer, along with 
Cranmer, Sir Thomas Smith, Richard Cox, and some 
others, appointed by Royal Commission to sit for the trial 
of heretics.3 The doctrines of the Anabaptists had made 
not a few converts, especially among the lower, more 
ignorant classes, who, by a natural reaction passed from 
one extreme class of opinions to the other extreme. One 
John Champneys, of Stratford-le-Bow, was brought before 
the Commissioners charged with teaching some of the 
customary tenets of the Anabaptists, and, in particular, 
. that of the absolute sinlessness of the regenerate. An 
effort was made to argue him out of his erroneous opinions, 
for the Commissioners had no wish to adopt any harsh 
measures ; he was induced to abjure, and was dismissed, 
with the injunction that on the following Sunday he should 
bear a fagot at Paul’s Cross, standing with it penitently 
on his shoulder during the sermon. In December, also, 
of the same year, a still more daring heretic was brought 
before them at Lambeth, a priest who denied the Divinity 
of Christ; but he, too, without the employment of any 
rigorous severity, was induced to recant his errors, and to 
submit to the penance imposed upon him. 


® Council Book ; there are also smaller payments on August 7, and 
September 22, 1549, to ‘Latimer,’ but they may not have been to our 
Latimer. On Palm Sunday, 1549, he received the customary gift of 
twenty shillings. Nichol’s Literary Remains of Edward V1. 

2 Latimer’s Sermons, pp. 100, 192. 3 Strype’s Cranmer. 

4 Strype’s Cranmer, vol. i. p. 254, from Cranmer’s Register. 


420 Latimer under King Edward 


But Cranmer and Latimer had more congenial | 
tion at Lambeth than the prosecution and punish 
heretics. The prospects and the projects of the Ref 
tion would engross their thoughts, almost to the exc 
of any other subject. Edward had only occupie 
throne some twenty months, and already several imp 
steps had been taken towards perfecting the Reforn 
of the Church in England. In all these Cranmer had bee 
the prime mover ; but what had been accomplished ¥ 
merely a fragment of the grand and truly noble plan 
that liberal and Christian prelate had for years co 
plated, even under the less promising régime of Henry, 
which he now gladly resumed under happier auspices ar 
with brighter prospects of success. a 

It is due to one who has not been sufficiently appreciate 
to allow him to state his splendid design in his ow 
words :—‘ We are desirous,’ he writes to John a Lasee 


one of the German Reformers, ‘of setting forth in o1 


aside all carnal considerations, to transmit to posterity 
true and explicit form of doctrine agreeable to the rule 
the sacred writings ; so that there may not only be ~: 
forth among all nations an illustrious testimony respect 
our doctrine, delivered by the grave authority of learne 
and godly men, but that all posterity may have a patter 
to imitate. For the purpose of carrying this import 
design into execution we have thought it necessary to have 
the assistance of learned men, who, having compared thei 
opinions together with us, may do away with all docti 
controversies, and build up an entire system of 1 
doctrine.’* Cranmer’s pious hope was that he migh 
able, with the help of some of the learned Conti 
Reformers, to institute a great and truly Catholic Reforn 
Church, which would include, in one comprehensiv: 


* Zurich Letters, p. 17: dated July 4, 1548. 


Continental Reformers 421 


strictly evangelical and scriptural system of doctrine, all 
the Reformed Churches in Europe, and would thus prove 
an insuperable barrier against the encroachments of the 
Church of Rome. 

Most of the illustrious Reformed Continental divines 
were accordingly invited to England. Melanchthon, 
obviously the person best qualified by learning and 
temperament to further Cranmer’s views, was repeatedly 
invited, but was unfortunately unable to come. Bucer, 
however, came, and Peter Martyr, and Paul Fagius, and 
John a Lasco, and others; ample provision was made for 
their entertainment in England; and Lambeth Palace 
became the hospitable haven open at all times to every one 
who had learning and piety to recommend him. ; 

Further reformations in the Church of England were 
contemplated ; a commission of divines was employed in 
revising and purifying the service-books of the Church ; 
and the influence of the Continental divines, operating 
through Cranmer and others of the English Reformers, 
contributed essentially to the removal of the one great blot 
that remained in the Creed of the English Church. 

To Latimer, this familiar intercourse with the learning 
and piety of other lands must have afforded a pleasure 
almost too deep for expression. One delights to picture 
him walking in the sunny gardens of the rich old palace, 
discoursing of that glorious vision, too bright alas ! for those 
evil days, of a pure, reformed, apostolical Church which 
should reunite divided Christendom in the indissoluble 
bonds of a scriptural creed, an edifying ritual, and an 
active charity. It was a vision too bright to be realised, 
although the hope of such a Church in the future is still 
the consolation of all true disciples of Christ ; but it was 
surely only in the noblest minds that such a glorious vision 
could find a place ; and, while it lasted, it must have 
seemed an anticipation of the great promised Millennium, 
and almost a foretaste of heaven. 


422 Latimer under King Edward 


One important and abiding result of this free con 
with the Continental Reformers, was the abandonm 
both Latimer and Cranmer of their deep-rooted belli 
transubstantiation ; a change of opinion which ma 
assigned with most probability to September of this : 

‘As to Latimer,’ writes Traheron (one of the former 
students at Cardinal College), ‘ though he does not clea 
understand the true doctrine of the eucharist, he is never- 
theless more favourable than either Luther or Bucer. I 
am quite sure that he will never be a hindrance to this 
cause ; for, being a man of admirable talent, he sees more 
clearly into the subject than the others’ [he mean: 
Cranmer especially, but the most enthusiastic admirer of 
Latimer must demur to the justice of this eulogy], ‘2 
is desirous to come into our sentiments, but is slow 
decide, and cannot without much difficulty and ev 
timidity renounce an opinion which he has once imbib 
But there is good hope that he will some time or oth 
come over to our side altogether ; for he is so far f 
avoiding any of our friends, that he rather seeks 
company, and most anxiously listens to them whi 
discoursing upon this subject, as one who is beyond 


to him, and even that he may be thoroughly convinesial a 
This cae Traheron was able to write to ae 7 


there is no doubt that it was about this time they both 
* Zurich Letters, p. 320. 2 Tbid., p. 322. a 


The First Prayer-Book 423 


abandoned that last great article of their old Romish 
creed to which they had so long adhered, in spite of the 
many arguments which were directed against it from 
Scripture, from reason, and from antiquity. 

At the close of this year, 1548, a number of eminent 
prelates and divines were busily occupied at Windsor in 
revising the whole of the service-books of the Church, 
in order to prepare a Book of Common Prayer for general 
use in the English language. Latimer was not amongst 
them ; such a work was not much in accordance with his 
temperament ; he had no special qualifications for assisting 
in it; and his age would naturally disincline him from 
what must have been to him a tedious labour. When 
Parliament met in November, the discussion of this first 
English Liturgy was the chief business that occupied 
their attention. Long debates ensued, and it was two 
months before the book was assented to in the Lords’, and 
received the royal sanction. The subject of the eucharist 
was, almost of necessity, the chief difficulty; and the 
House of Lords was converted for some days into a 
debating school, where the most mysterious points in 
theology were discussed with such zeal and learning 
that the members of the House of Commons came in 
crowds to listen to the disputations. Bonner and 
Tunstal were the chief champions of the Romish opinions, 
Gardiner having been again imprisoned, in a somewhat 
arbitrary manner, for some offences alleged to have been 
committed by him in a sermon preached on St. Peter’s 
Day (June 29). The great defender of the Reformed 
doctrine on the communion was Cranmer, the man whom 
the Romish party had been accustomed to traduce as 
‘ignorant of theology, and only conversant with matters 
‘of government; but whom they now found, to their 
experience, to possess great learning and ofaaeie skill 
in debate.’ ? 


* Zurich Letters, p. 469. 
* Peter Martyr to Martin Bucer, Zurich Letters, p. 460. 


424 Latimer under King Edward. 


It is not within the province of this biography to 
upon any discussion of the merits of the English Bo 
Common Prayer. Its grave and solemn words, ming 
so often in beautiful cadence with the deepest emoti O 
of those who utter them, consecrated by the reveren 
sO many generations, blending the pious aspirations of 
many lands and many centuries, have done more to mould 
the religious life of Englishmen than any uninspired book. 
In the endless controversies, within and without the 
Church of England, which have been waged about the 
doctrinal teaching and the public ritual of the Prayer 
Book, its real history has often been forgotten, and its 
true value in consequence erroneously appreciated. 

The Reformation in England had a specific character 
of its own. It was not, as in some other countries, a 
species of religious rebellion carried to a successful issue 
by the up-rising of popular strength against opposing 
authority ; there was no abrupt termination of the old 
order of things, no levelling to the dust of the former 
structure to clear the way for a new erection entirely 
different. In England the movement was in the strictest 
sense a Reformation ; it was conducted from first to : 
not in defiance of the ordinary authorities, but with the 
sanction and co-operation; there was no sharp line of 
demarcation between the old and the new, butan unbroken 
continuity ; nothing that was old was abolished, except 
what was incompatible with the new; the old founda- 
tions of the great national ecelesiiatltal edifice remaigial 
and much of the old ornaments and the original plz 
but what was incongruous, what had been found to be ~ 
dangerous, was as far as possible removed. a 

Of this peculiar feature in the history of the English 
Reformation, the source of its weakness according 
some writers, but the secret of its strength according — 
to others, the Book of Common Prayer is at once the 
product and the exact reflection; and any criticism of 


Latimer’s Restoration Proposed 425 


that book which overlooks this fact is utterly inept. 
Nothing is more certain than that any attempt to reform 
the Church in England after the pattern of the Churches 
in Scotland or Switzerland, would in the days of Henry 
or Edward have proved an utter failure: it would have 
been summarily trampled out in a week, and could only 
have tended to produce a reaction in favour of the 
old corruptions of the Church of Rome. To some 
extent Cranmer’s hopes from his labours were disap- 
pointed: the Prayer Book, compiled with so much 
sedulous care, has not been received by all classes of his 
Protestant countrymen as a manual of devotion in accord- 
ance with their opinions ; yet the high esteem in which 
it has been held by many generations of Englishmen, 
scattered over every quarter of the globe, must be con- 
sidered as an ample reward of the pious labours of the 

good Archbishop. 

' The same Parliament which sanctioned the Prayer 
Book in the spring of 1549, also relaxed the laws against 
the marriage of the clergy, and thenceforward the law 
of England declared with the Apostle that ‘ marriage 
was honourable in all.’ The measure was not carried 
without a long and formidable opposition ; celibacy had 
been so long the practice that marriage seemed almost 
a perilous innovation, and notwithstanding the many 
vices to which an enforced celibacy had led, and which 
the diligent inquiries of the various visitors had brought 
to light, there were not a few who wished to retain it 
from a confused idea of its peculiar sanctity. 

On January 8, 1549, the House of Commons moved an 
address to the Protector Somerset, requesting him to 
restore Latimer to his former bishopric of Worcester ;* 
but Latimer preferred to remain in his new career of 
usefulness, convinced that he was more effectually pro- 
moting that cause which he had so long loved, as ‘the 


* Fournals of the House of Commons. 


426 Latimer under King Edward — 


King’s preacher,’ than as the Bishop of Worcester. I 
must not be imagined that he surrendered himself to 
that ease to which his age and his long services might — 
have so justly entitled him. a 

‘He preached for the most part every Sunday twice 4 
not to speak of his indefatigable travail and diligence | 
in his own private studies, who, notwithstanding both his — 
years and other pains in preaching: every morning ordin- 
arily, winter and summer, about two of the clock in the 
morning, was at his book most diligently ; so careful was — 
his heart of the preservation of the Church and the good { 
success of the Gospel.’ * 

Latimer was again appointed to preach before Edward 
this year, on the Fridays in Lent, and these sermons— 
‘the famous Friday sermons’ as they were called, were 
noted down by an ardent admirer and printed, being the 
only sermons of Latimer’s that were printed during his 
lifetime, except the sermon before the Convocation and 
that on the Plough, which we have already noticed. © 
These sermons, according to his custom, were carefully — 
adapted to the audience whom he addressed, treating 
of their duties, and rebuking their vices with the un-— 
sparing zeal of one of the Jewish prophets. Indeed, the — 
people had come to look upon him as raised up and 
specially endowed by God, and almost gifted with the ~ 
powers of the old prophets to predict the future evils 
that were coming on the country. ‘If England ever had 
a prophet,’ was the common saying, ‘he was one’ 
‘Moses, Jeremiah, and Elias,’ it was remarked,‘ did 5 
never declare the true message of God to their rulers — 
and people with a more sincere spirit, faithful mind, 
and godly zeal than godly Latimer.’ nd 

A few extracts from these sermons will enable modern | 
readers to judge for themselves of that honest zeal 


« Foxe, vol. vii. p. 463; and Bernher’s Dedication in Latimer’s — 
Sermons, p. 320. 


Bribery Denounced 427 


which excited so lively an admiration amongst our 
ancestors. 

Hear, for example, with what boldness he denounces 
the vice, then so prevalent, of receiving bribes to prevent 
justice. 

‘“ Thy princes are rebellious,” said Isaiah to the Jews, 
“they are..companions of thieves : every one loveth gifts, 
and followeth after rewards: they judge not the father- 
less, neither doth the cause of the widow come before 
them.” Isaiah calleth princes thieves,’ said the English 
prophet to the great men of England. ‘ What! princes 
thieves? What a seditious harlot was this!* Was he 
worthy to live in a commonwealth that would call princes 
on this wise—fellows of thieves? Had they a standing at 
Shooter’s-hill or Standgate-hole, to take a purse? Why ? 
Did they stand by the highway side? Did they rob, or 
break open any man’s house or door? No, no; that is a 
gross kind of thieving. They were princes ; they had a 
prince-like kind of thieving : omnes diligunt munera, “they 
all love bribes.” Bribery is a princely kind of thieving. 
They will be waged by the rich, either to give sentence 
against the poor, or to put off the poor man’s causes. This 
is the noble theft of princes and of magistrates. They are 
bribe-takers. Now-a-days they call them gentle rewards ; 
let them leave their colouring, and call them by their 
Christian name, bribes. ‘They all love bribes; ” all the 
princes, all the judges, all the priests, all the rulers are 
bribers. What? Were all the magistrates in Jerusalem all 
bribers-takers ? None good? No doubt there were some 
good. ‘This word all signifieth the most part ; and so there 
be some good, I doubt not of it, in England. But yet we 
be far worse than those stiff-necked Jews ; for we read of 
none of them that winced or kicked against re preach- 
ing, or said that he was a seditious fellow. . . . Wo worth 


* Harlot, like virgin, was used by the old writers as of both sexes, and 
not as in modern times limited to the female. 


428 Latimer under King Edward 


these gifts! they subvert justice everywhere. “ 
follow bribes” : somewhat was given to them before 
they must needs give somewhat again ; for Giffe-gaffe 
a good fellow—this Giffe-gaffe led them clean from jus 
‘A good fellow on a time bade another of his friend: 
a breakfast, and said, “If you will come, you shall 
welcome ; but I tell you aforehand, you shall have 
slender fare—one dish, and that is all.’ ‘ What is that?” 
said he. “A middie and nothing else.” ‘“ Marry,” aid 
he, “you cannot please me better ; of all meats, that is for 
mine own tooth: you may draw oe round about the tow n 
with a pudding.” These bribing magistrates and judge 


follow gifts faster than the fellow would follow the 
pudding.’ if 
This, it will be seen, is a specimen of the plang broad, 
almost comic basa in which Latimer occasional 
indulged, and which rendered his bold denunciations all 
the more effective. The reign of a minor has always 
afforded scope to the ambitious and intriguing ; many 
vices grow in luxuriant strength, which a stronger hand 
would have repressed ; and the minority of Edward VI. 
-was marked, as all authorities agree, by a scandalous cor 
ruption of morals among the higher classes, and by an open 
disregard of justice on the part of judges. Such vice 
in high places often enough escape the condemnation” 
which they deserve ; the preacher, who ought to be th o 
defender of the poor, is often awed or bribed into silence, ~ 
and even when he speaks, he often lacks the necessary 
earnestness and force of character to secure a hearing + 
hence much of the high esteem in which Latimer washeld — 
by the poor and oppressed, who regarded him as specia 
appointed by God for their protection. We may imag 
for example, how the victims of the corrupt judges of ' 
time would thank God for such as the following :— ie 
‘ My lords-judges, ye should be more afraid of the poc or 
widow than of a nobleman, with all the friends and power 


Justice Perverted 429 


that he can make. Now-a-days the judges be afraid to 
hear a poor man against the rich; insomuch they will 
either pronounce against him, or so drive off the poor 
man’s suit that he shall not be able to go through with it. 
The greatest man in a realm cannot so hurt a judge as a 
poor widow ; such a shrewd turn she can do him. And 
with what armour, I pray you? Shecan bring the judge’s 
skin over his ears, and never lay hands upon him. And 
how is that? “The tears of the poor fall down upon their 
cheeks, and go up to heaven,” and cry for vengeance before 
God, the Judge of widows, the Father of widows and 
orphans. Poor people be oppressed even by laws. “ Wo 
worth to them that make evil laws against the poor!” If 
wo be to them that make laws against the poor, what shall 
be to them that hinder and mar good laws? What will ye 
do in the day of great vengeance, when God shall visit 
you? He saith, He will hear the tears of poor women 
when He goeth on visitation. For their sakes, He will 
hurt the judge, be he never so high. He will for widows’ 
sakes change realms, bring them into subjection, pluck the 
_judges’ skins over their heads. 

‘Cambyses was a great emperor, such another as our 
master is; he had many lords-deputies, lords-presidents, 
and lieutenants under him. It is a great while ago since I 
read the history. It chanced he had under him in one of 
his dominions a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men, 
—he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding ; 
—a handmaker in his office, to make his son a great man ; 
as the old saying is, ‘‘ Happy is the child whose father 
goeth to the devil.” The cry of the poor widow came to 
the emperor’s ear, and caused him to flay the judge quick, 
and laid his skin in his chair of judgment, that all judges 
that should give judgment afterwards should sit in the same 
skin. Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, 
the sign of the judge’s skin. I pray God we may once see 
the sign of the skin in England ! 


430 Latimer under King Edward 


“Ye will say, peradventure, that this is cruelly and un- 
charitably spoken, No, no; I do it charitably for a love I 
bear my country. God saith, “I will visit.” God hath 
two visitations: the first is when He revealeth His word — 
by preachers, and where the first is accepted, the second 
cometh not ; the second visitation is vengeance. He went 
a visitation when He brought the judge’s skin over his ears. 
If His word be despised, He cometh with His second — 
visitation—with vengeance. Noe preached God’s word a 
hundred years, and was laughed to scorn, and called an” 
old doting fool. Because they would not nécapl this first | 
visitation, God visited them the second time ; He poured | 
down showers of rain till all the world was drowned. Lot | 
was a visitor of Sodom and Gomorrah, but because they 
regarded not his preaching, God visited them the second 
time, and burnt them all up with brimstone, saving Lot. 
Moses came first a visitation into Egypt with God’s word, 
and because they would not hear him, God visited them 
again, and drowned them in the Red Sea. God likewise 
with His first visitation visited the Israelites by His prophets; 
but because they would not hear His prophets, He visite 
them the second time, and dispersed them in Assyria and 
Babylon. John Baptist likewise, and our Saviour Christ, — 
visited them afterwards, declares to them God’s will ; andl 
because they despised those visitors, He destroyed Jerusalem ; 
by Titus and Vespasian. Germany was visited twenty years — 
with God’s word’ [i.e., from 1517], ‘but they did not 
earnestly embrace it, and in life follow it, but made a 
mangle and a hotch-potch of it—I cannot tell what, partly 
Popery, partly true religion, mingled together. They say 
in my country, when they call their hogs to the swine — 
trough, ‘Come to thy mingle-mangle, come pur, come 
pur”; even so they made mingle-mangle of it. They 
could clatter and prate of the Gospel; but when all 
cometh to all, they joined Popery so with it that they 
marred all together: they scratched and scraped all the - 


The Lord Admiral’s Aims A31 


livings of the Church, and under a colour of religion it 
turned it to their own proper gain and lucre. God, 
seeing that they would not come unto His word, now 
He visiteth them in the second time of His visitation 
with His wrath;' for the taking away of God’s Word 
is a manifest token of His wrath. We have now a first 
visitation in England ; let us beware of the second. We 
have the ministration of His Word ; we are yet well : but 
the house is not clean swept yet. God hath sent us a 
noble King in this His visitation; let us not provoke 
Him against us. Let us beware; let us not displease 
Him ; let us not be unthankful and unkind ; let us 
beware of by-walking and contemning of God’s Word ; 
let us pray diligently for our King; let us receive with 
all obedience and prayer the Word of God.’ 

This earnest exhortation to obedience had more in it 
than meets the eye of the ordinary reader, and leads 
us naturally to refer to what was the great topic of the 
day, an occurrence in which Latimer was conspicuously 
concerned, and his conduct in which has been most 
severely censured by some modern historians. The 
Lord Admiral, of whom we have already spoken, had, 
notwithstanding repeated warnings, continued to prose- 
cute his ambitious designs. His wife, the Queen- 
Dowager, had died in the summer of 1548, not without 
suspicion of having been poisoned by him ; and he had 
then attempted to gain the hand of the Princess Elizabeth, 
with whom, during his wife’s lifetime, he had conducted 
himself in a manner that ‘reflects no credit upon the 
character of that renowned lady. He had corrupted the 
King’s servants ; had defrauded the treasury ; had abused 
his authority as Admiral in the most lawless way ; had 
made the most dangerous preparations for seizing the 
King’s person; and according to rumour had, in des- 


t Alluding to the arrangement called Interim, by which the German 
Protestants were for a time deprived of many of their religious privileges. 


432 Latimer under King Edward 


peration, attempted to murder the young King, who only 
escaped by the barking of his faithful pet dog.» He 
arrested accordingly on January 19, and committed 
the Tower ; and after a trial of the usual kind for 
treason, he was condemned to customary death of a 
traitor. +4 
On being informed of the sentence, Seymour requested 
that ‘Mr. Latimer might come to him,’ having doub 
heard him yok praised by his late wife, who is sai 


March 20, two days before the sermon which we he _ 
just quoted. The preacher’s allusions to the duty of all 
Englishmen to obey their lawful prince, were thus at once 
understood to imply a severe condemnation of the conduct 
of the Lord Admiral; Latimer, indeed, without men- 


what he meant well enough.’ But there were many 
doubted his guilt; Latimer’s words were consequently 
much censured ; and in his next sermon before the Court, 


by narrating all that he knew of Seymour’s death. The 
passages on this subject have been omitted from most 
editions of Latimer’s works, a tacit but unwarrantable 
censure on Latimer by his editors ; and they have been 
fiercely attacked and stigmatised in the strongest lange 
by several Romish historians, so that it is part of 2 
biographer’s duty to submit them to his readers. It h 
been said by some of Seymour’s partisans, ‘The man died 
very boldly ; he would not have done so, had he not been 
in a just quarrel.’ Latimer replied :— 

‘This is no good argument, my friends—a man = | 
not to fear death, therefore his cause is good. This is 


® See the articles of impeachment in Burnet, vol. v. p. 232, etc. ; the 
rumour is referred to in Zurich Letters, p. 648. * 


Seymout’s End 433 


a deceivable argument—he went to his death boldly, ergo, 
he standeth in a just quarrel. The Anabaptists that were 
burnt here in divers towns in England (as I heard of 
credible men, I saw them not myself) went to their death 
even intrepide, as ye will say, without any fear in the 
world, cheerfully. Well, let them go. There was in 
the old doctors’ times another kind of poisoned heretics, 
that were called Donatists; and these heretics went to 
their execution as though they should have gone to some 
jolly recreation or banquet, to some belly-cheer, or to a 
play. And will ye argue then—He goeth to his death 
boldly or cheerfully, ergo, he dieth in a just cause? 
Nay, that sequel followeth no more than this—A man 
seems to be afraid of death, ergo, he dieth evil. And 
yet our Saviour Christ was afraid of death Himself. 

‘If I should have said’ [in my last sermon] ‘all that 
I knew, your ears would have irked to have heard it, and 
now God hath brought more to light. And as touching 
the kind of death, whether he be saved or no, I refer that 
to God only. What God can do,I can tell. I will not 
deny but that He may in the twinkling of an eye save 
a man, and turn his heart. What He did, I cannot tell. 
And when a man hath two strokes with an axe, who can 
tell but that between the strokes he doth repent? It is 
very hard to judge. Well, I will not go so nigh to work ; 
but this I will say, if they ask me what I think of his 
death, that he died very dangerously, irksomely, horribly. 
The man being in the Tower, wrote certain papers, which 
I saw myself. They were two little ones, one to my lady 
Mary’s grace, and another to my lady Elizabeth’s grace, 
tending to this end, that they should conspire against my 
lord Protector’s grace ; surely, so seditiously as could be. 
Now what a kind of death was this, that when he was 
ready to lay his head upon the block, he turns me to the 
Lieutenant’s servant, and saith, ‘Bid my servant speed 
the thing that he wots of.” Well, the word was over- 

28 


434 Latimer under King Edward 


heard. His servant confessed these two papers, and 
were found in a shoe of his: they were sewed be 
the soles of a velvet shoe. He made his ink so cra 
and with such workmanship, as the like hath not kt 
seen. I was prisoner in the Tower myself, and I ¢ 
never invent to make ink so. It is a wonder to hear 
his subtility. He made his pen of the aglet of a point, 
that he plucked from his hose, and thus wrote these 
letters so seditiously, as ye have heard, enforcing ma ry 
matters against my lord Protector’s grace, and so forth, 
God had left him to himself, He had clean forsaken him. 
What would he have done if he had lived still, that went 
about this gear when he laid his head on the block, at the 
end of his life? Charity, they say, worketh but godly, and 
not after this sort. ‘ 

‘Well, he is gone: he knoweth his fate by this ; he is 
either in joy or in pain. There is but two states, if we be 
once gone. There is no change’ [from one to the other]. 
‘This is the speech of the Scripture, ‘‘ Wheresoever the 


it shall rest.” By the falling of the tree is signified the 
death of a man: if he fall into the south, he shall b 


salvation : if he fall in the north, in the cold of infidelity, 
he shall be damned. There are but two states—the state 
of salvation and the state of damnation. There is no 
repentance after this life, but if he die in the state of 
damnation, he shall rise in the same; yea, though 
have a whole monkery to sing for him, he shall have de | 
final sentence when he dieth.’ 

Latimer recurs to the same subject oftener than once, 
recounting what he had heard and witnessed of the 
conduct of Seymour, whom he declared to be ‘the 
farthest from the fear of God that ever he knew or 
heard of in England.’ For this attack upon the character 
and memory of the Admiral, Latimer has been censured. 


Latimer Vindicated 435 
‘with extreme severity. Lingard, who is always bitter 
against Latimer, and omits no opportunity of assailing 
him, speaks with indignation of him as having on this 
‘occasion ‘lent his eloquence to defend the barbarous 
animosity of Somerset.’ His charge is merely an echo 
of the censure of Sir John Hayward,* and both have 
followed Sandars, who, with his characteristic shameless 
audacity, says that ‘if Latimer were the Apostle of 
England,’ as the Reformers said, ‘then his apostleship 
consisted in lying.’ The good taste of Latimer’s allusions 
may indeed be questioned by those who do not consider 
‘the gravity of the crisis; but their abstract truth and 
_justice cannot be disputed. It would be an easy matter 
to defend Latimer, but the burden of framing his defence 
_need not be undertaken by his biographer. An historian 
-of profound research and unquestionable judgment has 
\thus defended Latimer : 

_ ‘No one who has read the depositions’ [against 

Seymour] ‘in Haynes, or who has examined the same 
evidence as it is abridged in the general historians of 
the times, will deny that the life of Lord Seymour, of 
‘Sudley, was that of a fierce, ambitious, proud, and 
-revengeful man; and if the story told by Latimer be 
true, that his last hours were employed in a device to 
sow jealousies between the princesses Mary and Elizabeth 
and the Protector, that he wrote letters for that purpose, 
which letters Latimer saw, it proves that he laid his head 
upon the block in the same violent, unforgiving, and vin- 
dictive spirit in which he lived. Was it too much to call 
such a death dangerous, irksome, horrible? I think not.’2 

In the following extract we have a specimen of the 


* Kennet, vol. ii. p. 303. 

2 Tytler, England under Edward VI. and Mary, vol. i. p. 152. I have 
too much respect for Milton to repeat (it would be superfluous to 
refute) his idle and baseless comment upon Latimer’s proceeding, 

in his book of the Reformation in England. 


__ Our prayer pleaseth God because Christ pleaseth G 


436 Latimer under King Ed yard 


manner in which Latimer, when occasion offere 
the errors which had so long been taught in Englan 

‘What should it mean, that God would hay 
diligent and earnest in prayers Hath He such 
in our works? Many talk of prayer, and make it 
labouring. Prayer is not babbling; nor praying 
monkery. It is, to miserable folk that are opp 
a comfort, solace, and a remedy. But what ma 
our prayer to be acceptable to God? It lieth n 
our power ; we must have it by another mean. Reme! 
what God saith. of His Son, “This is My dear So 
whom I delight.” He hath pleasure in nothing but | 
How cometh it to pass that our prayer pleaseth Gox 


“When we pray, we come unto Him in the confid 
of Christ’s merits, and thus offering up our prayers, 
shall be heard for Christ’s sake. Yea, Christ will 
them up for us, that offered up once His sacrifice to Gt 
which was acceptable ; and he that cometh with ang ) 
mean than this, God knoweth him not. ' 

‘This is not the missal sacrifice, the Popish aciiel 
stand at the altar and offer up Christ again. Out. 
that ever it was used. I will not say nay, but that ye 
find in the old doctors this word saerifice’ [applied tc 
communion], ‘ but there is one general solution for all 
doctors, that St. Augustine showeth us, viz., “The si 
a thing hath oftentimes the name of the thing th 
signifieth.” As’ [thus] ‘the supper of the Lord is 
sacrament’ [outward visible sign] ‘of another thin 
is a commemoration of His death which suffered 
for us ; and because it is a sign of Christ’s offering 
therefore it bears the name thereof. And this saer 
[viz., prayer offered up in confidence of Christ’s meri 
‘a woman can offer as well as a man; yea, a poor wt 
in the belfry hath as good authority to offer be 
sacrifice, as hath the bishop in his pontificalibus, 


Faith 437 


his mitre on his head, his rings on his fingers, and his 
sandals on his feet. And whosoever cometh asking the 
Father remedy in his necessity for Christ’s sake, he 
offereth up as acceptable a sacrifice as any bishop 
can do. 

‘And so, to make an end: this must be done with a 
constant faith and a sure confidence in Christ. Faith, 
faith, faith; we are undone for lack of faith. Christ 
nameth faith ; faith is all together: ‘“ When the Son of 
man shall come, shall He find faith on the earth?” Why 
speaketh He so much of faith? Because it is hard to find 
a true faith. He speaketh not of a political faith, a faith 
set up for a time ; but a constant, a permanent, a durable 
faith, as durable as God’s Word. He came many times ; 
first in the time of Noah, when he preached, but He found 
little faith. He came also when Lot preached, when He 
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but He found no faith. 
And to be short, He shall come at the latter day, but He 
shall find a little faith. And I ween the day be not far 
off. When He was here carnally, did He find any faith ? 
Many speak of faith, but few there be that hath it. Christ 
mourneth the lack of it; He complaineth that when He 
came He found no faith. 

‘This Faith is a great state, a lady, a duchess, a great 
‘woman ; and she hath even a great company and train 
about her, as a noble state ought to have. First, she hath 
a gentleman-usher that goeth before her, and where he is 
not, there is not lady Faith. This gentleman-usher is 
called “ Knowledge of Sin”? ; when we enter into our 
heart, and acknowledge our faults, and stand not about to 
defend them. Now, as the gentleman-usher goeth before 
her, so she hath a train that cometh behind her ; and yet, 
though they come behind, they be all of Faith’s company, 


_ * Latimer was deeply impressed with the idea that the end of the 
world was at hand, and often refers to it. 

? Knowledge means here acknowledgment: the words were the 
same in Latimer’s time, 


438 Latimer unde King Edward 


they are all with her. All these wait upon Faith 
hath a great train after her, besides her gentleman- 
her whole household ; and these be, the works of 
vocation, when every man considereth what vocation h 
in, what calling he is in, and doeth the works of the sa 
as, to be good to his neighbour, to obey God, ete. This 
the train that followeth lady Faith, as for example + 
faithful judge hath first an heavy reckoning of his fa 
repenting himself of his wickedness, and then forsa 
his iniquity, his impiety, feareth no man, walks up 
and he that doth not thus, hath not lady Faith, but rather 
a boldness of sin and abusing of Christ’s passion. Lady 
Faith is never without her gentleman-usher, nor withou 
her train : she is no anchoress, she dwells not alone, she is 
never a private woman, she is never alone. And yet 
many there be that boast themselves that they have 
and that when Christ shall come they shall do wel 
enough. Nay, nay, those that be faithful shall be so few 
that Christ shall scarce see them.’ % 

The passage just quoted is worthy of being carefully 
considered. It began with a condemnation of the err 
of the Romanists; but the preacher was impartial i 
rebuking whatever, on either side, seemed contrary to 
God’s Word. Success had developed dangers amongst 
the Protestants in England, as it has done in the Church 
in every age. The cause of the Reformation was now 
clearly the winning side, and many espoused it from 
unworthy motives, some even whose lives were an open 
outrage to the principles which they professed to follow. 
The long controversy about justification by faith and not 
by priestly magic, had been abused by some to counten- 
ance themselves in utter disregard of all religious duties. 
An orthodox creed had come, in some cases, not only to 
be magnified far above a holy life, but to be considered an 
acceptable substitute for it. As Becon complained, there 
were already many ‘gross gospellers, whose religion con- 


National Perils 439 


sisted entirely in words and disputations, not at all in 
Christian acts and godly deeds.’ 

Solomon’s words, ‘ Woe to thee, O land, when thy king 
is a child, were beginning to be conspicuously realised in 
the reign of Edward. The King himself, making all 
reasonable allowance for flattery, was a youth of most 
exemplary piety, in every way worthy of the reverence in 
which the Reformers held him; but he could not, of 
course, control the impetuous spirits around him. There 
was no longer a firm hand against which the boldest 
feared to rise: the sovereign was a mere symbol of 
authority, which rival statesmen strove to grasp and wield 
for their own personal aggrandisement. 

What had been done in promoting the interests 
of the Reformation was indeed in accordance with 
the wishes of the pious King, and was strenuously 
supported by Cranmer; but the great authorities in 
the State, the leading nobles, and wealthy gentry 
had in many cases merely given their adhesion to 
what seemed to them the popular wish. They were 
willing to profess themselves Reformers, so long as 
this seemed a necessary step to gain the favour of the 
King or secure popularity with the multitude. They had 
thrown off all the restraints of the old faith, and they 
refused to submit to any authority of that Gospel which 
was now everywhere proclaimed. Heresies of every kind \ 
were openly enunciated ; gross licentiousness was shame- 
lessly practised ; the most solemn duties were scandalously 
neglected. All testimony concurs in speaking of the reign _ 
of Edward as marked by a great corruption in public / 
morals, especially among the higher classes. 

The hearts of the pious Reformers were deeply dis- 
tressed with the fierce tide of wickedness which they 
strove in vain to stem. The Bishops appealed to Parlia- 
ment to devise some measures for the restoration of 
‘godly discipline.* The great preachers of the day, 

* Lords’ Fournals, Nov. 14, 1550. 


440 Latimer under King Edward 


Latimer, Gilpin, Lever, Bradford, Knox, all used th 
utmost eloquence in denouncing the prevalent vices, It 
was the never-failing theme of those frequent letters 
which passed between the English Reformers and 
friends on the Continent. ‘Those very persons,’ writes 
Burcher to Bullinger, ‘who wish to be, so to speak, most 
evangelical, imitate carnal licentiousness, under the pretext 
of religion and liberty. Every kind of vice, alas! is rife 
among them, and especially that of adultery and forni 
cation, which they do not consider as a sin’? ‘How 
dangerously our England is afflicted by heresies,’ Hooper 
laments to Bullinger, ‘God only knows; I am unable 
indeed, from sorrow of heart, to express unto your piety. 
Alas ! not only are those heresies reviving among us which — 
were formerly dead and buried, but new ones are 
springing up every day.’? i. 

Both of Bullinger’s correspondents were perhaps © 
inclined to take too gloomy a view of things; but the 
general prevalence of vice and heresy, and, what was more © 
to be lamented, the open sin of some who prided them- ~ 
selves on the orthodoxy of their reformed creed, are facts — 
that cannot be gainsaid, and that must be borne in mind 
_ in reading Latimer’s sermons. For more than twenty 
years the now aged Reformer had boldly denounced the — 
errors and superstitions and immoralities of the Church of — 
Rome; and he was equally unsparing in his exposure of — 
the new vices and heresies that began to spring up in 
spite of the clear light of the Gospel. No abuse was oa 
scandalous, for example, than the unblushing sale of © 
spiritual offices, none more likely to produce permanent — 
and irreparable evil in the Church; and Latimer thus — 
turns upon the infamous practice (unhappily not yet 
abolished) the full force of his censure and his ridi- — 
cule. * 
‘TI marvel the ground gapes not and devours us; how- — 


* Zurich Letters, p. 647. ® Ibid., p. 66. 


Simony Reproved AAI 


_ beit, we ought not to marvel—surely it is the great lenity 


of God that suffers it. O Lord, in what case are we! If 
the great men in Turkey should use in their religion of 
Mahomet to sell, as our patrons commonly sell benefices 
here, the office of preaching, the office of salvation, it 
should be taken as an intolerable thing: the Turk would 
not suffer it in his commonwealth. Patrons be charged to 
see the office done, and not to seek a lucre and a gain by 
their patronage.t There was a patron in England, when 
it was that he had a benefice fallen into his hand, and a 
good brother of mine came unto him, and brought him 
thirty apples in a dish, and gave them his man to carry 
them to his master. It is like he gave one to his man for 
his labour, to make up the game, and so there was thirty- 
one. This man cometh to his master, and presented him 
the dish of apples, saying, ‘ Sir, such a man hath sent you 
a dish of fruit, and desireth you to be good unto him for 
such a benefice.” ‘ Tush, tush,” quoth he, “this is no 
apple matter ; I will have none of his apples; I have as 
good as these, or as he hath any, in mine own orchard.” 
The man came to the priest again, and told him what his 
master said. “Then,” quoth the priest, “desire him yet 
to prove one of them for my sake; he shall find them 
much better than they look for.” He cut one of them, 
and found ten pieces of gold in it. “ Marry,” quoth he, 
“this isa good apple.” The priest standing not far off, 
hearing what the gentleman said, cried out and answered, 
“They are all one apple, I warrant you, sir ; they grew all 
on one tree, and have all one taste.” ‘ Well, he is a good 
fellow, let him have it,’ quoth the patron. Get you a 
graft of this tree,and I warrant you it will stand you in 
better stead than all St. Paul’s learning. Well, let patrons 
take heed ; for they shall answer for all the souls that 
perish through their default. There is a saying that there 


* The usual practice was to give the living to one who had already 
bound himself to make over a large part to the patron, 


442 Latimer under King Edward 


be a great many in England that say there is no soul,’ that — 
believe not in the immortality of man’s soul, that think it 
is not eternal, but like a dog’s soul; that think there is 
neither heaven nor hell. O Lord, what a weighty matter 
is this! What a lamentable thing in a Christian common- 3 
wealth! I cannot tell what they say; but I perceive by ~ 
their works that they think so, or else they would never do ~ 
as they do. These sellers of offices show that they — 
believe that there is neither hell nor heaven : it is taken — 
for a laughing matter.’ 

To such a length did this scandalous practice of selling k. 
livings proceed, that many benefices were held by laymen. — 
Hundreds of greece were reduced to worse than Popish ~ 
degradation; hundreds of pulpits, untenanted by any ~ 
clergyman, were covered with dust. In 1553, a Bill.was 
introduced enacting that no person should hold ecclesi- — 
astical preferment, unless he were at least in deacon’s — 
orders ; and the House of Commons were actually sunk a 
so low as to throw it out. Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of — 
the North, venturing to use stronger language even than 
Latimer fad ever employed, declared before the Court, 6 
that ‘if such a monster as Darvel Gatheren’ [the hidentall 
Welsh idol of which we have read before, which figured — 
at the burning of Forest] ‘could have set his hand to a — 
bill to let the patron take the greater part of the profits, 
he might have had a benefice.’ Such facts as these will 
have to be considered again by us, when we come to the 
Popish reaction under Mary. ? 

These few specimens culled from Latimer’s sermons of 
Lent, 1549, will enable modern readers to estimate aright 
the position of Latimer in the reign of Edward, as no 
narrow-minded theologian, no fierce advocate of revolu- 
tionary measures, no courtly chaplain fawning to the great, 


* This opinion is referred to by Hooper in the letter already quoted ; 
Zurich Letters, p. 65. 

2 See also Hutchinson’s Epistle to Cranmer, prefixed to the Parker 
Society’s edition of his works, 


. 


Joan of Kent 443 


but (as the collector of his sermons truly described him) 
one who frankly ‘uttered the truth, to the extolling of 
virtue, to the reward of well-doers, the suppressing of vice, 
the abolishment of all Papistry.’ That Latimer came to 
be generally recognised as a censor of public morals is the 
best tribute that could be paid to his ability and his 
personal integrity: only a man of great force of mind 
could have attained that position ; only a man of unim- 
peachable honesty could have retained it. Of his great 
popularity we have already had several proofs: one 
curious illustration has been gathered from the church- 
wardens’ books of St. Margaret’s parish, Westminster, 
where, under the year 1549, the following entry occurs :— 
‘Paid to William Curlewe, for mending of divers pews 

that were broken when Dr. Latimer did preach oO 1 Gye 

The last of his sermons before the Court had been 
preached on Good Friday, April 19. A week before, on 
the 12th, a commission had been issued by the King, 
appointing Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and some twenty 
others to inquire into the heresies that were so rife in the 
country, with full powers to examine heretics, and inflict 
upon them appropriate punishments. The first case 
brought before the Commissioners was one that has been 
frequently discussed since. One Joanna Bocher, other- 
wise called Joan of Kent, bewildering herself with the 
Anabaptist speculations, denied the true Incarnation of 
our Lord. Her judges reasoned with her, but she 
remained obstinate, and even taunted them with their 
ignorance of Scripture. ‘It is a goodly matter,’ she said, 
‘to consider your ignorance. It was not long ago since 
you burned Anne Askew for a piece of bread,3 and yet 


* Townsend’s Foxe, vol. vii., quoted from Nichols’ Illustrations of 
Ancient Times, etc. ? Rymer, Federa, vol. xv. p. 181. 

3 The speech is given on the authority of Strype (Eccl. Mem. ii. pt. 1. 
335), and may be set down as gossip. Not one of Joan Bocher’s 
aE ec had been concerned in the condemnation of the gentle Anne 

skew. 


444 Latimer under King Edward 


came yourselves soon after to believe and profess th 
same doctrine for which you burned her. And now, fo 
sooth, you will needs burn me for a piece of flesh, and ir 
the end you will come to believe this also, when you have _ 
read the Scriptures and understand them.’* Her obstinacy ; 
left them no alternative ; she was condemned and handed 
over to the civil power ;* a year’s respite, however, was _ 
granted her, in the hope that calm reflection, and con- — 
ference with men of learning, might induce her to recant. — 
Nothing, however, could change her belief; and on May ~ 
2, 1550, she perished at the stake. ; 

Her execution is a black spot on the history of the — 
English Reformation, and has been greedily seized upon 
by the Roman Catholics as a proof of the intolerance 
of Protestantism. It was intolerant beyond all question ; — 
but such an accusation comes with a bad grace from the 
sons of a Church that has never scrupled to use the rack ~ 
and the stake as instruments of propagating the faith. 
Every circumstance, moreover, in the process against Joan 
of Kent showed how reluctant her judges were to adopt 
harsh measures against her ; how eagerly they desired any | 
concession on her part that would have exempted her 
from the full penalties of the law. The romantic story 
usually appended to the history of Joan’s martyrdom, 
which represents the young King as unwilling to sign the 
writ for her execution, and only yielding with tears to 
Cranmer’s urgent entreaties, may be now finally trans- 
ferred from the pages of the historian to those of the 
sensational novelist. The warrant was issued by the 
order of the Council, not by the King ; and Cranmer was 
not even present on the occasion as the Council-book, still 
preserved, puts beyond all question. ? 

Other heretics were brought before the same com- 


X See the sentence, etc., in Burnet, vol. i. p. 246. 
2 See among others, preface to Hutchinson’s Works, Parker Society 
edition, where the romantic fiction is disproved at length, 


oc ae a ‘ 2% y : 
$% Were Sea ae ee ee 


, 


Popular Risings 445 


mission, and Latimer was present when an Anabaptist of 
Stratford-le-Bow, who had denied the doctrine of the 
Trinity, and the Incarnation of Christ, abjured his errors, 
and was sentenced to bear a fagot on the following 
Sunday, at Paul’s Cross, standing with it on his shoulder, 
while the preacher refuted his heresies. 

The Book of Common Prayer came into use for the first 
time on Whit-Sunday, June 9. Next morning a number 
of the common people in Devonshire rose in rebellion, 
declaring they would have no new service, and compelling 
some of the priests (not very much against their will, it is 
believed) to celebrate Divine worship after the old method. 
They demanded the restoration of the old Latin service, 
the re-enactment of the Six Articles, the restriction of the 
circulation of the English Bible, in short, the revival of 
that darkness and superstition which had been to such a 
large extent dispelled by the labourings and sufferings of 
nearly thirty years. Cranmer was employed to write an 
elaborate refutation of their demands ; but a considerable 
army, and some sharp fighting, were found more effectual 
arguments for reducing them to order. Simultaneously 
with these disturbances in the West, there were risings in 
Wiltshire, in Sussex, in Hampshire, in Yorkshire, and 
neatly half of the counties of England, occurring so 
suddenly, and spreading so rapidly, as to show that there 
was a widely diffused feeling of discontent throughout the 
country. It was only the Western rebels that gave their 
religious grievances the most prominent place among the 
wrongs for which they demanded redress ; the others 
complained mainly of the tyranny of the nobles and 
wealthy, and especially of the enclosure of land that had 
always been common property, of the raising of rents and 
prices, and of the diminished demand for labour, in conse- 
quence of the soil being abandoned to pasture and not 
brought under tillage. It was, in short, a species of servile 
war, on which it would be superfluous to enlarge in this 


446 Latimer under King Edward 


+ 
a 


biography ; it could not, however, be entirely overlooked 


as an important transaction fraught with grave a 


quences, and indicative of an unsettled condition of 
the country, a sign of the times, well worthy of con- — 
sideration. 

Of the other affairs of the autumn of 1549, a few words 
will suffice. Bonner was deprived of his bishopric, and 
imprisoned ; by a stretch of authority, certainly; yet he 
met with very little sympathy, his rough, fierce temper, 
and his vacillation of opinion rendering men insensible to 
the injustice of the proceedings against him. Of more 
importance was the fall of the Protector, Somerset. 
Many of the Council, for various reasons, some from 
hatred of his religious opinions, some from jealousy, some 
from ambition, had become his enemies, and only waited 
a suitable opportunity to turn upon him. Taking advan- 
tage accordingly of his absence with the young King at 
Hampton-court, they spread reports that he was levying 
men to make himself absolute master of the kingdom ; 
they gained over the City, seized possession of the Tower, 
secured many of the nobles and gentry; and the Protector, 
after a vain attempt to appeal to arms, yielded to their 
unquestionable superiority. Articles charging him with 
high misdemeanours and treason were brought against 
him, and he was sent to the Tower to await his trial. 

His fall excited the hopes of the Romish party in 
England; he had always been a zealous Reformer. 
Warwick, who was the rising man likely to step into his 
place, was a secret Romanist ; and it was fondly believed — 
that, after the imprisonment of Somerset, the old Latin 
service and the abolished ceremonies would be restored.* 
Warwick (better known as the Duke of Northumberland, 
to which title he was speedily advanced) would doubtless 
have preferred to gratify these wishes ; but he was not 
inclined to postpone his fortune to his creed; he saw that — 


* Burnet, vol. v. p. 287, from Cranmer’s Register. 


= 


A 


f 


* 
a 


"y 


Ridley and Latimer 447 


Edward and the influential part of the nation were in 
favour of the Reformed doctrines, and he threw in his lot 
with them, with all the reckless zeal of a man to whom 
religion was simply a means of promoting his own 
ambitious views. Though always ‘a Papist in his heart,’ 
as he declared on the scaffold, he assumed such a sem- 
blance of earnestness in the cause of the Reformation as 
to deceive many, especially of those more ardent Reformers 
whose opinions he seemed so cordially to adopt. Hooper, 
for example, a man of simple piety and intense zeal, but 
singularly destitute of any of Latimer’s shrewdness in 
reading character, conceived the most profound reverence 
for Northumberland, and writes of him as ‘that most 
faithful and intrepid soldier of Christ.’ The elevation of 
Northumberland to power was followed by more summary 
measures against the Romanists than any that had been 
previously adopted : measures which were hailed by such 
men as Hooper as brilliant indications of religious progress ; 
but which were of no real service to the Reformation, 
and, indeed, constituted another of the elements of that 
Popish reaction which in the next reign well-nigh swept 
the Reformation away. 

Another transaction of the summer of 1549 might have 
been allowed to pass unnoticed but for its eliciting a kindly 
notice of Latimer by Ridley, which it would be unpardon- 
able to omit in this biography. Amid the universal wreck 
of all institutions capable of yielding plunder to the 
hungry courtiers, the Universities were threatened ; and 
it was proposed to divert some of their revenues from 
sacred to secular uses. At Cambridge, Clare Hall, where 
Latimer had spent part of his time as a student, had 
suffered from the rude hands of the spoiler. There 
was nothing left in it but bare walls; the library had 
been completely pillaged; greater misfortune still, the 
authorities contemplated its conversion into a college 


Zurich Letters 


448 Latimer under King Edward 


for the exclusive study of law. Ridley protested 
this secularising of what had been solemnly de 

to God’s service, and, in writing to Somerset, p 
with kindly sentiment that those halls might be s 
which had reared one so useful in his generation ag 
Latimer. 


will speak now but of one, I mean Master Latimer, whic 
is, as I do think, a man ebpoimiel of God and endued 
excellent gifts oe grace to set jot God's Word, to whoa 


not only for his constant maintenance and defence of 
God’s truth, when Papists and persecutions did assault 
the godly, but also for that now he preacheth the Gos 
so purely, and so earnestly and freely rebuketh 
worldly of his wickedness. Alexander, if I do rig 
temember the history, in the victorious course of 
conquest, did spare a city for the memory of the fam 
poet Homer’s sake. Latimer far passeth that poet, ; 
the King’s highness by your grace’s advice shall 
excell that Gentile Prince in all kind of mercy and 
clemency.’ ! 

No more graceful tribute was ever paid by one 
man to another. Somerset, however, was not influen 
by any such sentimental considerations ; he disappro 
of Ridley’s suggestions ; and it was only his own ov 
throw that averted the threatened fate of Clare Hall. 

In the Parliament which sat from November 14, 15 
to January 31, 1550, some further progress was 
towards the completion of the Reformation. A Bill 


t State Paper Office, Edward VI., Domestic, vol. vii. No, 11. ; 
letter has never been printed. it 


Bishops against Reform 449 


passed ordering all the images that still remained in 
churches to be broken and defaced, those only which 
formed parts of tombs and sepulchral monuments being 
spared ; and even these were to be mutilated if they had 
ever been abused for purposes of superstition. It was 
likewise ordered by Act of Parliament and by Royal Pro- 
clamation that all the old service-books, the ‘antiphoners, 
missals, grayles, processionals, manuels, legends, pies, 
portasies, journals, and ordinals,’ * should be called in, and 
so ‘defaced and abolished, that they might never after 
serve,’ either for their original use, or as ‘a let to that 
godly and uniform order,’ which had been set forth in the 
Common Prayer. This measure was intended especially 
to condemn ‘divers unquiet and evil-disposed persons,’ 
who, after Somerset’s fall, had ‘noised abroad that they 
should have again their old Latin service, their conjured 
bread and water,’ and the rest of their former ‘vain and 
superfluous ceremonies.’ A new form was likewise pre- 
pared for the ordination of priests and deacons, and the 
consecration of bishops, in which all, or nearly all, the 
objectionable ceremonies of the Romish ordinal were 
retrenched. 

It is very noteworthy that these small measures of reform, 
trivial and unimportant when compared with the great 
enactments of former years, were opposed by many of the 
bishops, and were carried mainly by the voices of the tem- 
poral peers. When the Bill for sanctioning the Reformed 
Ordinal was read the third time, only six bishops voted for 


_ it, five voted against it, sixteen were absent, most of them 
of course hostile, but not bold enough to exhibit their 
_ hostility openly ; the Bill for defacing images, in like man- 
_ ner, could only muster eight advocates on the episcopal 


bench, stv opposed to it, thirteen were absent.2 The 
majority of the bishops, in fact, were Roman Catholics at 


* Letter from the Lords of Council, Burnet, vol. v. p. 287. 
2 Fournals of the House of Lords. 


29 


450 Latimer under King Edward 


heart, and looked with disfavour on any step that was taken © 
to promote the Reformation ; and naturally enough they 
lost the respect of the people. They complained in Par- — 
liament that their authority was gone, and that public 
morals had suffered in consequence. The peers expressed : 
their profound regret ; but no steps were taken to redress — 
the alleged grievance. Indeed, the Lords themselves, 3 
shortly afterwards, gave a conspicuous proof of the dises- — 
teem into which the Bishops had fallen, for they appointed 
a commission to revise the ecclesiastical laws, although the — 
whole episcopal bench (one only excepted), headed by — 
Cranmer, combined to oppose it. 3 
In the beginning of 1550, Latimer, whose bodily infir- — 
mities were aggravated by increasing years, was so seriously 4 
ill that he despaired of recovery. He was not, however, — 
to die on his bed; his health was again restored, and he ~ 
was able once more to resume, for the last time, his duties — 
as Court preacher during Lent. Hooper had been ordered 
to preach on the Wednesdays in Lent, and delivered seven — 
sermons on the Book of Jonah, which greatly pleased the 
young King, who entertained a high respect for the 
preacher’s learning and earnestness. The Fridays in Lent © 
were allotted to Poynet, subsequently Bishop, successively 
of Rochester and Winchester. Latimer seems to have 
preached only on Monday, March 10,? his health possibly — 
not admitting of any further effort at that time. His ser- — 
mon (or sermons, for he preached both morning and after- — 
noon) he felt to be his ‘uJtimum vale’ before that audience ; — 
and he was therefore more zealous than ever in rebuking 4 
what he deemed the prevalent vices of the period. He 

* Lords’ Fournals. : 

2 The exact date of the sermon is fixed by a comparison of Latimer’s 
statement: ‘I have this present day delivered into the Council, £180, 
&c.,’ with the entry in the Council Book, ‘ Monday, March Io, 1550, Mr. 
Doctor Latymer brought in £180, &c.;’ see supra, p. 350, note. No 
previous biographer or editor of Latimer has ever consulted the Council 


Book ; in fact, no one has made any serious attempt to assign Latimer’s 
sermons to any precise dates. : 


On Covetousness 451 


implored the King to devise some means for restraining 
the scandalous immorality of the day, and for punishing 
the shameful bribery and peculation in the public offices. 
All the evils that afflicted the country seemed to him to 
flow from one source, that ‘love of money,’ which the 
Apostle declared to be ‘the root of all evil’; and it was 
against covetousness, therefore, that Latimer’s voice was 
for the last time raised in solemn protest before the rulers 
of England. Of the sermon, which commenced with an 
allusion, well understood at the time, to Hooper’s lectures 
on Jonah, the following specimen will suffice :-— 

‘“ Take heed and beware of covetousness”’ [such was 
his text], ‘“‘ Take heed and beware of covetousness” ; 
“Take heed and beware of covetousness.” And what 
and if I should say nothing else these three or four hours 
(for I know it will be so long, in case I be not com- 
manded to the contrary), but these words, “ Take heed 
and beware of covetousness” ? It would be thought a 
strange sermon before a King, to say nothing else but 
“ Beware of covetousness.” And yet as strange as it is, it 
would be like the sermon of Jonah, that he preached to 
the Ninevites, as touching the shortness, and as touching 
the paucity or fewness of the words. For his sermon was, 
“There is yet forty days to come, and Nineveh shall be 
destroyed.” Thus he walked from street to street, and 
from place to place round about the city, and said nothing 
else but “There is yet forty days,” quoth he, “and 
‘Nineveh shall be destroyed.” There is no great odds nor 
difference, at the least-wise in the number of words, no 
nor yet in the sense or meaning, between these two 
sermons, “There is yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be 
destroyed,” and these words that I have taken to speak of 
this day, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness.” For 
Nineveh should be destroyed for sin, and of their sins 
covetousness was one, and one of the greatest ; so that it 
is all one in effect. And as they be like concerning the 


452 Latimer under King Edward 


shortness, the paucity of words, the brevity of words, ; ni 


like in fruit and profit. For what came of Jonah 
sermon? What was the fruit of it? “At the preach 

of Jonah they believed God.” Here was a great fruit, a 
great effect wrought. What is the same? “They 
believed God”: they believed God’s preacher, God’s 
officer, God’s minister Jonah, and were converted from 
their sin. They believed that, as the preacher said, 


be destroyed within forty days. This was a great fruit, 
for Jonah was but one man, and he preached but one 
sermon, and it was but a short sermon neither, as touching 
the number of words; and yet he turned all the whole 
city, great and small, rich and poor, king and all. 4 
‘We be many preachers here in England, and we 
preach many long sermons, yet the people will not repent 
nor convert. This was the fruit, the effect, and the good 
that his sermon did, that all the whole city at his preaching — 
converted, and amended their evil living, and did penance 
in sackcloth. And yet here, in this sermon of Jonah, is no” 
great curiousness, no great clerkliness, no great affectation © 
of words, nor of painted eloquence; it was none other 
but “ Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” it 
was no more. This was no great curious sermon, but 
this was a nipping sermon, a pinching sermon, a biting 
sermon ; it had a full bite, it was a nipping sermon, a 
rough sermon, and a sharp biting sermon. Do you not ~ 
here marvel that these Ninevites cast not Jonah in prison ; — 
that they did not revile him and rebuke him? They did 
not revile him nor rebuke him ; but God gave them grace ~ 
to hear him, and to convert and amend at this preaching. 
A eg Sg matter, so noble a city to give place to one 
man’s sermon! Now England cannot abide this gear; 
they cannot be content to hear God’s minister, and his 
threatening for their sin, though the sermon be never so 


Jonah and Nineveh 453 


good, though it be never so true. It is “a naughty 
fellow, a seditious fellow; he maketh trouble and 
rebellion in the realm; he lacketh discretion.” But the 
Ninevites rebuked not Jonah that he lacked discretion, or 
that he spake out of time, that his sermon was out of 
season made; but in England, if God’s preacher, God’s 
minister be anything quick, or do speak sharply, then he 
is a foolish fellow, he is rash, he lacketh discretion. 
Now-a-days, if they cannot reprove the doctrine that is 
preached, then they will reprove the preacher that he 
lacketh due consideration of the times ; and that he is of 
learning sufficient but he wanteth discretion. ‘“ What a 
time is this” (they say) “picked out to preach such 
things! He should have a respect and a regard to the 
time, and to the state of things, and of the commonweal.” 
It rejoiceth me sometimes when my friend cometh and 
telleth me that they find fault with my discretion ; for by 
likelihood, think I, the doctrine is true ; for if they could 
find fault with the doctrine, they would not charge me 
with the lack of discretion, but they would charge me 
with my doctrine, and not with the lack of discretion or 
with the inconveniency of the time. I will now ask you 
a question. I pray you, when should Jonah have preached 
against the covetousness of Nineveh, if the covetous men 
should have appointed him his time? I know that 
preachers ought to have a discretion in their preaching, 


and that they ought to have a consideration and respect 


to the place and the time that he preacheth in; as I 
myself will say here that I would not say in the country 
for no good. But what then! Sin must be rebuked; 
sin must be plainly spoken against. And when should 


_ Jonah have preached against Nineveh, if he should have 


forborne for the respects of the times, or the place, or the 
state of things there? For what was Nineveh? A noble, 
a rich, and a wealthy city. What is London to Nineveh ? 


Like a village, as Islington, or such another, in com- 


ret he 
ye: 


454 Latimer under King Edward 


parison ot London. Such a city was Nineveh, 
three days’ journey to go through every street of it, ; 
to go but from street to street. There were noblen 
rich men, wealthy men; there were vicious men 
covetous men, and men that gave themselves to- 
voluptuous living, and to the worldliness of getting rich 
Was this a time well chosen and discreetly taken of Jon 
tocome and reprove them of their sin, to declare wi 
them the threatenings of God, and to tell them of th 
covetousness ; and to say plainly unto them, that exe 
they repented and: amended their evil living, they a 
their city should be destroyed of God’s hand within fo 
days? And yet they heard Jonah, and gave place to 
preaching. They heard the threatenings of God, and id 
feared His stroke and vengeance, and believed God : that 
is, they believed God’s preacher and minister ; 
believed that God would be true of His word, that 
spake by the mouth of His prophet and thereupon | 
penance to turn away the wrath of God from th 
Well, what shall we say? I will say this, and not spai 
Christ saith Nineveh shall arise against the Jews at the 
day, and bear witness against them ; because that t 
hearing God’s threatening for sin, did penance at 
preaching of Jonah in ashes and sackcloth; and I 
Nineveh shall rise against England, thou Englan d! 
Nineveh shall arise against England, because it will not 
believe God, nor hear His preachers that cry daily u 
them, nor ae their lives, and especially their covet 
ousness. Covetousness is as great a sin now as it maul 
then ; and it is the same sin now it was then; and He — 
will as sure strike for sin now as He did then.’ 
This year it was reported that Latimer had again b 
offered a bishopric,’ possibly that of London, vacant 
Bonner’s deprivation, or that of Rochester, vacant by 
transference of Ridley to London. The report may 


s 


* See Zurich Letters, p. 465. 


Force Ordained 455 


been altogether without foundation: there certainly was 
no probability that Latimer, now that his health was 
manifestly beginning to give way, would accept an office 
that was sure to bring with it an amount of labour and 
responsibility for which he had neither strength nor in- 
clination. 

It seems not improbable that part of this summer was 
spent in intimate intercourse with Bradford, for whom 
Latimer had conceived a warm affection, and to whom 
we owe the following homely Dutch sketch of Latimer’s 
simple life and warm-hearted hospitality :— 

‘I thank you for your cheese,’ he writes to his friend 
Traves ; ‘and so doth father Latimer, for I did give it 
him, and he saith he did never eat better cheese : and so 
I dare say he did not. I thank him I am as familiar with 
him as with you: yea, God so moveth him towards me, 
that his desire is to have me come and dwell with him 
whensoever I will, and welcome.’? 

The summer was in many ways notable in London. 
Ridley had succeeded to the diocese of which Bonner had 
been deprived, and he signalised his accession to the see 
by various marked changes. The first ordinations 
according to the new ‘ ordinal,’ took place on Midsummer 
Day, when, among others, Foxe the martyrologist was 
admitted into holy orders. During the summer also, 
Ridley issued his injunctions for cleansing his diocese 
from various Popish customs, which still continued to be 
practised, and which kept up a species of counterfeit 
of the mass in spite of the legislation which had 
abolished that great Romish rite. And in order to mark 
unmistakably the change from the mass to the communion, 
he ordered that the ‘ Lord’s board should be set up after 
the form of an honest table decently covered, rather than 
after that of an altar ; and that all other by-tables or altars 
should be removed.’ 


* Bradford’s Letters : Foe, vol. vii. p. 285, etc. 


456 - Latimer under King Edward ; 


This reformation was not effected without consider 
disturbance ; for a jealousy now began to be exhib 
towards all outward changes, and the Reformers 
becoming divided amongst themselves. Of this dis 
a most conspicuous proof was given at the close of 
year, in the unhappy dissension that sprang up in 
Church on Hooper’s nomination to the bishopric 
Gloucester. At Easter, on the conclusion of his 
sermons, Hooper was offered this bishopric by the Kin 
but declined it. He objected to the oath of suprema 
which all bishops were required to take, as shameful at 
impious ; and he condemned the episcopal dress and the 
ceremonies used in consecration, as being Aaronic ai 
Popish; and, therefore, very properly declined — 
proffered honour. 7 

Edward, however, was extremely anxious to secure t 
services of a prelate so zealous and learned as Hoop: 
Accordingly, he struck out the obnoxious clause in the 
oath, and promised to use his influence with Cranmer 
procure the remission of those vestments and ceremonies 
to which objection had been made: and Hooper, on this 
understanding, consented to accept the offered bishopric 
and was duly elected, and took the customary oaths, 
the omission of the words which he deemed sinful. 

Cranmer had no scruple of conscience about the cere- 
monies ; he regarded them as things in their own natt 
absolutely indifferent, and would willingly enough ha 
gratified Hooper ; but there were legal difficulties in the 
way. The form of ordination had been sanctioned only a 
few months before by Parliament, and, without the autho-— 
rity of Parliament, it could not legally be dispensed with. 
Hooper, moreover, had spoken in unkind and unwarrant-— 
able terms of the procedure of the Reforming bishops in 
Parliament. He was altogether ignorant of the extrer 
difficulty with which any measure of reform could 
carried in Parliament, where not one-fourth of the bisho 


Hooper and Ceremonies 457 


“were in favour of any further changes. He had spent the 


greater part of the last eight years in Switzerland, in a 
country where the Reformation had provoked a civil war, 
where the spirit of bitter hostility admitted of no com- 
promise, where everything had been done on a principle 
diametrically the opposite of that which had directed the 
English Reformation. He was, therefore, from his con- 
victions, from habit, and from his natural disposition, 
inclined to stand out resolutely against the slightest com- 
pliance with what appeared to him foolish, if not also 
sinful ceremonies. His unbending determination provoked 
Ridley into an equally firm resolution to maintain the duty 
of all to obey the law in matters that were indifferent. 
Angry conferences ensued, to the grief of all pious 
Reformers, and the open joy of the Romish party. The 
great Continental Reformers, Peter Martyr and Bucer, 
were consulted, and both of them censured Hooper. The 
Council requested him to withdraw his opposition to the 
ceremonies. But Hooper had gone too far, he thought, 
to yield ; instead of retracting, he preached against the 
ceremonies, arraigning the wisdom of the Council and the 
lawfulness of the form of ordination. Other points of 
difference naturally emerged in the heat of controversy ; 
and the Council, offended with Hooper’s conduct, ordered 
him not to leave his house except for the purpose of 
consulting with Cranmer, Ridley, or Goodrich, and for- 
bade him to preach till he had further licence. 
Hooper, in spite of this prohibition, published a ‘Con- 
fession and Protestation,’ in which he repeated all the 


_ statements that had given offence. This, of course, only 


provoked the Council to further violence ; they com- 
mitted him to Cranmer’s custody, and afterwards sent 


_ him to the Fleet ; finally, in March, 1551, he submitted, 


and was consecrated with all those ceremonies against 
which he had so strenuously protested. He preached 
before the King again in Lent, 1551, arrayed in the 


458 Latimer under King Edward 


obnoxious garments which he had condemned as Aaronical. 
‘His upper garment,’ says Foxe, who was a great admirer 
of Hooper, ‘ was a long scarlet chimere? down to the f 
and under that a white linen rochet that covered all hi 
shoulders ; upon his head he had a geometrical, that is, a 
four-squared cap—a mathematical cap with four angles, 
dividing the whole world into four parts’ [the ordinary 
college cap in fact], ‘albeit that his head was round.’? 

This unhappy controversy filled the Church with bitter- 
ness and confusion for nearly nine months ; and, like the 
subsequent controversies on the same subject in the 
Church of England, it was a deplorable misfortune in- 
jurious to all parties except the Church of Rome. Hooper : 
lost all the credit to which his bold defence of his opine ’ 


in him to resist, then he sinned in connlgsaed and if his 
compliance was free from sin, then his previous opposi- 
tion must be deserving of censure. His diocese, which 
had never enjoyed the superintendence of a faithful bishop 
since Latimer had presided over it, was deprived for nearly 
a year of the benefit of his presence and his teaching. 
Nor did men fail to note that he, who had so vehemently 
condemned the ceremonies of the book of ordination as 
impious and sinful, readily enough lent himself to schemes 
for alienating from the sees over which he was placed, 
those revenues which had been intended to support the 
ministers of religion, and not to swell the treasures of the 
griping nobles who plundered the Church. i 

Hooper’s diligence, and piety, and consistent example, 
and noble faithfulness to the death, have made the most 
ample amends for this unhappy controversy, and have 


2 

t The chimere is now black instead of scarlet, though the more 
gorgeous colour is still used on certain occasions, : 
2 See on the coniieverey Hooper’s letters to Bullinger, and those eof 


Council Book of Edward VI., etc. 


An Unhappy Controversy 459 


secured him one of the most honoured places among the 


founders of the Reformed Church of England ; but it will 
not be disputed that it would have been a public gain if, 


_ like Knox, he had firmly declined an office about which 
_ he had any scruples of conscience. 


It is gratifying to know that the temporary estrangement 


| between the chief actors in this wretched controversy, 
' Cranmer, Ridley, and Hooper, was soon healed. They 


had too many points in common to remain long hostile to 


_ each other. A year after the controversy, Cranmer writing 


to Melanchthon assures him that Hooper was in the 
greatest esteem among them, and was living with him at 
Lambeth on terms of the most familiar intimacy.t Such 
a primate as Cranmer was just the man to pour oil on the 
troubled waters of strife ; but no subsequent reconciliation 
could undo the mischief which the controversy had pro- 
duced. To spend nine months in debating whether a 


_ Christian man might without sin wear a four-squared 


geometrical cap, ‘albeit that his head was round,’ was not 
only attaching an exaggerated importance to a matter of 
little consequence ; but in the actual condition of England, 
with vice and immorality of every kind openly rampant, 
with a large and ever increasing phalanx of determined 
Romanists on the watch, with the scantiest and most 
inadequate supply of faithful clergy, the raising of such a 
controversy was the most serious misfortune that had yet 
befallen the English Reformation. It was especially un- 
fortunate in exciting the national pride of the English 
people against the Reformers: many who could not 
understand the principles in dispute, thought it an attempt 
to mould English institutions after the fashion of a petty 
Continental state, a blow aimed at English independence 
in fact, and from that moment a deep-rooted prejudice 
pervaded a large body of the population—not only against 
the extreme reforming party, but against those who had 
* Cranmer's Letters, p. 431. 


V Latimer under King Edward 


Reformation in England. 
Latimer had no active share in the controversy, and 
never explicitly alludes to it. We know how utterly alien 
all such disputes were to his temper, and we can conceive 
the profound grief that must have oppressed him ai 
witnessing this unhappy strife between men who sho 
have been united as brethren in the same holy cause, 
Perhaps to this we may attribute some of his indignation 
against those whom he calls ‘hot gospellers,’ men, that is, 
whose religion exhibited itself in zeal for the reform of 
matters of altogether trifling consequence, without any 
corresponding care for the performance of the most 
important duties ; and to this also, may, with little hesita- 
tion, be ascribed his melancholy foreboding that the 
Reformation would, for a time at least, be overthrown, 
and that those who had been its chief advocates would 
perish in its temporary fall. Nothing could remove his 
presentiment that Gardiner was reserved in prison in the 
Tower as the instrument of his martyrdom ;? and this: 
presentiment was in a few years signally realized. 
In the month of November, 1550, Latimer, for the first’ 
time since his ordination, paid a visit to Lincolnshire. H 
may have been requested to preach in that part of the 
kingdom, as many other eminent preachers were at ig 
time sent to officiate in such counties as seemed mos 


urgently to need their labours. More probably he - 
been prevailed upon to take this long journey in order to 
spend some time at Grimsthorpe Castle, with Catherine, 
Duchess of Suffolk, widow of Charles Brandon, Henry’s” 
favourite, a lady of great ability, of exemplary conduct, 
and highly distinguished for her adherence to the doctrines: 
of the Reformation, for which, indeed, she was subse- 
quently driven into exile. It may be reasonably con-— 
jectured that this good lady thought Latimer’s ni 


t Latimer’s Sermons, p. 321, 


A Subject’s Duties 461 


health might be improved by the journey, and the rest 
from some of his fatiguing labours in her hospitable halls ; 
and to her kindness in entertaining Latimer and his faith- 
ful domestic, Augustine Bernher, we owe the preservation 
of most of the Reformer’s sermons. 

Whatever may have been the cause that drew him to 
Lincolnshire, he preached at Stamford on November 9, 
urging upon his hearers with his customary earnestness a 
more diligent attention to the duties which the Gospel 
imposed upon all Christian people, that they might not 
bring a scandal upon their religion by their vicious con- 


_ duct. Lincolnshire had been for many years noted for its 
| disaffection; and therefore Latimer did not omit to 


enlarge upon the necessity of obedience and respect to 
the civil magistrate, as was naturally enough suggested by 
his text, ‘Render to Czsar the things that are Czsar’s, 
and to God the things that are God’s.’ The reader is by 
this time so well accustomed to Latimer’s manner of 


| dealing with his subject, that any lengthened extracts 


from his sermon may be foreborne; as, however, the 
conduct of the Reformers has been frequently misrepre- 
sented, and some people seem to imagine that they were 
a band of turbulent revolutionaries, it is only just to 
Latimer’s memory to insert the following plain exposition 
of the duties of a subject to his sovereign :— 

‘When the Parliament, the High Court of this realm, is 
gathered together, and there it is determined that every 
man shall pay a fifteenth part of his goods to the King ; 


_ then commissions come forth, and he that in sight of men, 
in his cattle, corn, sheep, and other goods, is worth an 
_ hundred mark or an hundred pound, will set himself at 
| ten pound ; he will be worth no more to the King but 
_ after ten pound : tell me now whether this be theft or no? 


Doth he give to Czsar that which is due to Cesar? Doth 
he not rather rob the King of his bound duty and debt 
that he owed to the King? Yes, it is very theft; and 


462 Latimer under King Edward 


thou mightest with as good conscience take my cloak ¢ 
my tippet from me, as so unjustly take or withhold fron 
the King that which the Parliament hath given unto th 
King. It is thy bounden duty to pay him truly that whie 
is granted : for it is due debt, and upon peril of thy sou 
thou art bound to obey it. Yea, I will say more : if th 
King should require of thee an unjust request, yet art thot 
bound to pay it, and not to resist and rebel against t 
King. The fue indeed, is in peril of his soul, for aski 
of an unjust request ; and God will in His due tims 
reckon with him for it; but thou must obey thy King, a 
not take upon thee to judge him. God is the Kin 
Judge, and doubtless will grievously punish him if he 
anything unrighteously. Therefore pray thou for th 
King, and pay him his duty, and disobey him not. sa 
know this, that whensoever there is any unjust a 
laid upon thee, it is a plague and punishment for thy si 
as all other plagues are ; as are hunger, death, pestilen 
and such other. We marvel we are plagued as we b 
and I think verily this unjust and unfaithful dealin 
with our princes is one great cause of our plague: loc 
therefore every man upon his conscience. Ye shall ne 
be judged by worldly policy at the latter day, but b 
God’s word. . . . Show me one man in all England that i 
the poorer for paying the King his duty, for being a t 
dealing man, a good alms-man, etc. Many have come f 
poverty by dicing, carding, riot, whoredom, and such-li 
but never no man by truth, mercy, alms, right — 
with the King.’ 

From Lincolnshire, Latimer returned again to Lonel 
and on January 18, 1551, he was appointed with thirty 
one others on a royal commission to inquire into the 
various heresies with which the kingdom was ther 
infested. He was not, however, one of the leading 
members of the codinicsels and does not in fact appeal 


* Rymer’s Federa, vol, xv. p. 250. 


Gardiner Deposed 463 


to have taken any share in its duties. One unfortunate 
man, a Dutchman, called George van Paris, was con- 
demned for denying the Divinity of the Saviour, and was 
handed over to the secular power to suffer the extreme 
penalty assigned by the law for such a heresy." 

The year 1551 was not distinguished by any event of 
very much importance either in the civil or religious 
history of England. Gardiner, who had been so long 
confined in the Tower, was at length deposed from his 
bishopric : every effort had been made to induce him to 
promise compliance with the doctrines and services of the 
Reformed Church as by law established ; but beyond 
expressing his willingness not to oppose what had been 
done, he declined any further to compromise himself. 
He had in truth acted throughout with singular caution 
so as not to expose himself to punishment, and yet 
without any sacrifice of his principles. His deprivation 
was an illegal stretching of the law, in defence of which it 
can only be said that in such troublous times it was 
dangerous to the constitution of the Reformed Church to 
allow so able an opponent to be at large in full possession 
of his liberty and of the great influence of his position. 
Tunstal, also, though a much less dangerous adversary, 
was arrested on the charge of being accessory to treason, 
and was imprisoned and subsequently deprived ; his real 
crime, in the eyes of such men as Warwick, being that 
‘the revenues of his see were enormously great, and 
- offered a most tempting booty to their sacrilegious 
hands. 

No open steps in the promotion of the Reformation 
were taken during this year ; but two measures of some 
importance were, after much deliberation, finished, and 
were subsequently sanctioned by royal authority. The 
first of these was the revision of the Book of Common 
Prayer, in order to free it from some of those features to 


* Cranmer’s Register: King Edward’s Fournal. 


464 Latimer under King Edward 


which the Continental Reformers had objected a a 
remnants of the old Romish superstition, and as coun 
tenancing the belief in the corporeal presence of Christ a al 
the communion. Some other changes and manife 
improvements were introduced, and the book was brough 
very nearly to its present forme indeed, as revised in 
1551 and ratified in 1552, the Prayer-Book came nearer 
the ideas of the more advanced Reformers than at any 
subsequent period. The other measure was the prepara 
tion of a series of Articles in which the doctrinal teaching 
of the Church of England should be embodied. Hitherto 
the King’s Book and the Homilies were the only authorized 
standards of dogmatic teaching to which the clergy were 


precise and compendious formula should be compiled. 
The experience of past years had shown the futility of 
hoping for any such summary of doctrine from the 
debates of Convocation: and the Articles, forty-two in 
number, and not essentially different from the presen 
thirty-nine, were drawn up by Cranmer alone," after con- 
sultation possibly with Ridley, and not impossibly with 
Latimer, and after a very careful study of similar con- 
fessions prepared by the Continental Reformers. They 
were subsequently submitted to the revision of the six 
royal chaplains? and were, in 1553, published with 
Edward’s sanction, but seem never to have been discussed 
in Convocation at all. They have always been received 
with general approbation by the great body of Reformers; 
they embody the fundamental principles for which the 
Protestants had contended; they explicitly condemn 
many characteristic beliefs antl practices of the Church of 
Rome, and on disputed~ doctrines they speak 
moderation, and leave room for differences of opinion. 

Latimer may have had some share with Cranmer in the 


® See Cranmer’s examination before Brokes : Works, p. 220 
2 Council Book: Harleian MSS., 352 ; Oct. 20, 1552. 


Evil Motives 465 


| compiling of the Articles, and the revision of the Liturgy ; 


| 


there is no record of any other work in which he was 
engaged in the early part of 1551. He was no longer 
the Court preacher as formerly ; it may be that he had 
declined that honour from consciousness of failing 
strength ; it may be also that the leading men in the 
Council disliked a preacher who so boldly censured their 
vices, and who was so certain to condemn those designs 
for a further spoliation of the Church under the guise of 
purifying it, which were so fashionable amongst the 
nobles. Grievously as the Church had been already 
pillaged, it still possessed treasures sufficient to attract the 
cupidity of the greedy harpies that now swayed the 
counsels of the sovereign. They looked with envious 
eyes upon the Communion vessels, the Church furniture, 
the robes of the clergy (the rich vestments were still 
retained in the first Prayer-Book) ; and they urged on a 
further Reformation of the Church, not from any love of 
simplicity of worship, but from the desire to share in the 
rich booty which would thus be available for the fortunate 
plunderers. Latimer was far too shrewd a judge of 


character to be deceived by any such hypocritical zeal for 


pure and simple worship ; and he was, therefore, naturally 
enough disliked and suspected by such men as the new 
Protector ; and from this time he ceased to occupy the 


_prominent position which had hitherto been accorded 
him. Cranmer shared with him in this loss of public 
/esteem; a younger generation of clergy became the 


leaders of this new movement; men of great energy; 
honest and learned, most of them ; but young, impetuous, 
| ill acquainted with the character of the English nation, 
| and ill qualified to direct and control the Church in such 
'troublous times. While they were zealously attacking 
‘everything in the existing ritual of the Church that 
| seemed in any way tinged by the influence of the Church 
‘of Rome, the affections of the great bulk of the people 
30 

| 

| 


in = 


466 Latimer under King Edward 


were becoming alienated from the Reformation, the 
opportunity of instructing the nation was passing a 
and the clergy were being gradually deprived of 
source of revenue that had been consecrated by the 
of many generations to support the ordinances of reli 
The Council Book is full of grants of Church lands an 
livings to the courtiers and their parasites ; and it seemer 
likely that, in a short time, the clergy would be, as in th 
days of the Apostles, compelled to support themselves by 
manual labour. ‘ 
An ominous cloud began to gather over the natal 
Everywhere the voice of complaint was heard. The 
courtiers, indeed, were accumulating enormous fortunes 
but the royal revenues were defrauded, the coinage wai 
debased, whilst the common people compianden of 
insolent tyranny of the nobles, and groaned under the 
unwonted rise in the price of all provisions. To addt 
the gloom, the sweating-sickness raged during the summer 


ever occurred in the worst visitation of cholera; and the 
plague was all the more alarming from the rapidity with 
which it cut off its victims. Stow relates that during the 
sickness, seven citizens met one evening at supper, anc 
that next morning six of them had died of the distemper. 
Among others who perished were Henry, Duke of Suffolk 
and his brother—the sons of that Duchess of Suffolk with 
whom, as we suppose, Latimer had spent some time a 
Grimsthorpe Castle in the close of 1550, and who aga in, 
as we shall see, entertained him there in 1552. Intrigu 
also, and rumours of conspiracies and rebellions, wet 
rife throughout the year; Somerset, it was said, vy 

anxious to recover that supremacy which he had 
and was resolved on displacing Northumberland 
violence; and for this crime, real or alleged, he vy 


Another Retirement 467 


arrested, imprisoned, and, after such a trial as State- 
prisoners then enjoyed, executed in the beginning of the 
following year. 

In October, in prosecution of an Act of Parliament that 
had remained inoperative for two years, a Royal Com- 
mission was issued for revising and correcting the vast 
body of ecclesiastical laws ; a work of which, down 
to the present day, the Church of England feels the 
most pressing need. Latimer was one of the thirty-two 
Commissioners proposed ;* but he was never actually 
engaged in what would have been to him a most un- 
congenial task ; a new Commission was issued in a month, 
and another Commission was substituted in Latimer’s 
room. The work was finished with elaborate care, but it 
never received any royal sanction; and the result of so 
much labour has thus unfortunately been altogether lost to 
the Church. 

In truth, Latimer may be said to have again retired 
into private life. From the commencement of 1551 he 
ceased to take any active part in public affairs ; he was no 
longer ‘ Latimer the King’s preacher’ ; his eloquence had 
not failed, but had rather ripened with age; but other 
tongues had captivated the ears of the most ardent’ 
Reformers and the most powerful nobles. He does not 
even appear to have been in London during the last two 
years of Edward’s reign ; certainly, London was no longer 
his ordinary place of residence; he spent his time in 
visiting amongst his friends, availing himself, of course, of 
every opportunity of preaching wherever he went. Thus, 
what London lost the country gained; the eloquence 
which had for some years been heard chiefly in the Court 
by noble audiences, was now poured forth with equal 
copiousness, to delight and instruct humbler listeners in 
various parts of England. Many of the sermons thus 
delivered were preserved and printed by the care of his 


* Council Book: Harleian MSS., 352, 


468 Latimer under King Edward 


faithful servant Augustine Bernher, and from them," 
assisted by some slight extraneous hints in other docu- 
ments, we are able to form a rough notion of Latimer’s 
movements and occupation from the close of 1551 to the 
death of Edward. é 

Two places we know he visited during this period. At 
Baxterley, in Warwickshire, a ‘fair mansion’ had been 
built by John Glover, a man of primitive piety, ‘living 
like one who was in heaven already and dead to this” 
world’ ; who had ‘distributed the most of his lands to - 
the use of his brethren, and committed the rest to the 
guiding of his servants and officers,’ that he might devote 
himself without interruption to religious contemplation. 
For many years previously, this pious man was, like 
Bilney, sunk in despair, believing that he had somehow 
committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. | 
In his distress he at last came to Latimer, who was, as” 
Fuller quaintly puts it, ‘confessor-general to all Protestants” 
troubled in mind’: and Latimer has recounted, in his last © 
sermon before King Edward, Glover’s perplexities and the 
peace and comfort which he at length received. A close 
intimacy of course sprang up between Latimer and Glover, — 
and Baxterley Hall not unfrequently, it is believed, 
received the great preacher as an inmate.? In the year 
1552 we know that Latimer had spent some days with 
John Glover, for on the last day of May his servant 
Bernher thus writes to the Swiss Reformer, Bullinger ; a 


t To any one accustomed to investigation, I need not say that the 
dates prefixed to many of the sermons rather perplex than guide any — 
biographer who endeavours to arrange them. In the older editions — 
the sermons are simply reprinted as they were collected by Bernher, 
without any attempt at chronological exactness ; and this order, or — 
disorder, has been followed by Dr. Watkins in his pretentious edition, if 
in which he announces that he had for the first time arranged them in 
order of time. Dr. Corrie seems to give up the effort as hopeless ; 
yet, as will be seen, with the help of a Kalendar, it is possible to assign 
almost all the sermons to their precise date, and thus some li ght 
is at length cast on what has so long been a sea of confusion. 

2 Dugdale’s Warwickshire, p. 1054: the son of Glover’s brother was 
called Hugh, doubtless after Latimer. 


a! 


7 


A Simple Sermon 469 


‘My master, Doctor Latimer, had intended to write to 
you, but he has to-morrow to undertake a long and 
arduous journey, so that the excellent old man, and your 
most loving friend, is unable to send you a letter at this time; 
but he especially commands me to salute you in his name 
as honourably and lovingly as possible.’ * 

Among Latimer’s sermons, also preserved by Bernher, 
is one said to have been preached at Baxterley on 
Christmas Day, 1552;? and though it may be doubted 
whether the year is not a mistake for 1553, it at least 
confirms the tradition that Latimer was no infrequent 
visitor at Baxterley. The sermon is a plain practical 
comment on the narrative of the nativity, carefully adapted, 
as was Latimer’s custom, to the daily duties and the 
special temptations of his humble audiences; and in 
an age when petty hamlets were usually ill provided 
with preachers, we may hope that the honest, faithful 
words of Latimer were found useful and edifying by 
many. 

But it seems certain that the most of Latimer’s time, 
during what yet remained of Edward’s reign, was spent 
under the hospitable roof of the Duchess Dowager of 
Suffolk. That lady had lost her two sons by the terrible 
sweating-sickness of 1551, and she stood in need of such 
consolation as the presence of Latimer, and his advice and 
example, were sure to afford. A wealthy heiress, raised to 
the highest. rank by her marriage with the Duke of 
Suffolk, she was still more distinguished by her zealous 
adherence to the doctrines of the Reformers, her piety, 


* Zurich Letters, vol. i. p. 361. 

2 Latimer’s Remains, p.84. In all the editions it is followed by a 
sermon said to have been preached the next day (St. Stephen’s Day) 
at Grimsthorpe, no trifling journey for a man of Latimer’s age even 
in our railway days, and in those times an impossible achievement. 
It seems probabie, however, on a careful examination of the sermons, 
that that on Christmas Day may have preceded or succeeded that on 
St. Stephen’s Day by a year: the dates are evidently mere rough 
guesses. 


470 Latimer under King Edward 


and her care for her numerous household. She 
already, as we have supposed, invited Latimer in 1550 
share the splendour of her kindly home; and in 1552 
Grimsthorpe was for many months the residence of the 
Reformer. He preached, of course, in the neighbouring 
churches ; and, not content with this, at the request of 
the Duchess, hie expounded the Lord’s Prayer to her 
household servants in the great hall of the castle, which 
her late husband had built and had gaily decorated with 
some of that magnificent Gobelin tapestry which his 
former wife, Mary Tudor, Queen-Dowager of France, had | 
brought fies as part of her dowry.* : 

Two volumes of these sermons, preached at Grims- 
thorpe and the adjacent parts of Lincolpehas : collected 
and gathered by Augustine Bernher, his servant,’ were 
printed in the reign of Elizabeth, by John Daye, in 1562 
and 1571, and have been repeatedly reprinted. Including 
the seven sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, they amount to 
the number of twenty-eight, and are the most extensive 
collection of Latimer’s sermons which we possess. They 
were preached chiefly in 1552, in the months of January 
and February,? and at the close of the year in November 
and December. Some of the sermons would even seem 
to have been preached in the previous year ;3 so that if it 
may with much probability be conjectured that Latime : 
remained at Grimsthorpe from November, 1551, to the 
spring of 1552; then left for Baxterley, and returned: 
again to Grimsthorpe in the end of that year. 


t Leland’s Iftinerariwm. ' 

2 The sermons printed last by Corrie, and apparently ee b 
him to 1553, belong certainly to 1552: for in 1553 there were only” 
three Sundays after Epiphany, in 1552 there were five ; hence the 
sermon for the fifth Sunday after Epiphany must have been in 1552: 
besides, the dates, ‘Second Sunday after Epiphany being the 17th day 
of January,’ etc., apply only to 1552: in 1553 the 17th of January was” 
a Tuesday. ; 

3 E.g., that on the 24th Sunday after Trinity, for in 1552 there were” 
only twenty- -three Sundays after Trinity. 


Lincolnshire Sermons A7t 


These Lincolnshire sermons have all the peculiar cha- 
racteristics of Latimer’s style. They are, as usual with 
him, carefully suited to the position of his audience, and 
are addressed to the appropriate duties and dangers of 
their station in life. They are marked by the same dis- 
cursive method of treating his subject, interspersing plain 
practical exhortation to duty, with occasional sallies of 
Latimer’s peculiar humour, and with interesting bio- 
graphical recollections of a life that had been long and 
eventful. Vice rather than error, moral wickedness rather 
than doctrinal heterodoxy, were always the chief objects 
of Latimer’s most vehement denunciations ; and in his 
pages, as in the drier and colder pages of the Statute 
Book, we may read the character of the times, and may 
picture to ourselves the age, with all its vices and follies. 
His sermons, one can clearly perceive, notwithstanding all 
the blinding influence of modern culture, must have been 
intensely interesting to those who heard them; the 
variety of the matter, the piquancy of the style, the 
homeliness of the language, the earnestness of the preacher 
were all calculated to deepen the impression of his 
words. 

These Lincolnshire discourses are scarcely known to 
the mere general literary dilettante, who contents himself 
with a hurried perusal of the more famous sermons on the 
Card and on the Plough: but they will well repay the 
reader ; and if space permitted, many extracts of high 
merit might here have been added, as illustrations of 
Latimer’s latest style of pulpit-oratory. They prove 
beyond all question that age had not damped his energy, 
nor enfeebled his intellect: these latest sermons are as 
vigorous as his earliest; they exhibit no falling off in 
mental acuteness, whilst they give abundant proofs of a 
growing ripeness of Christian wisdom and grace—the 
natural fruit of a life spent in the honest service of 
God. 


x 


472 Latimer under King Edward 


Of this period spent at Grimsthorpe, in useful unob- 
trusive labour, only one incidental illustration has b 
preserved, which, were we to interpret it au sérieux, wo 
certainly be a striking contribution to the biography of 
Latimer. In the State Paper Office, there is a letter from 
the Duchess Dowager of Suffolk to her neighbour Cecil 
(‘of Burghley House, by Stamford Town’), then jus' 
beginning to occupy a conspicuous position in the political 
world. The letter is assigned to the month of June, 1552, 
and is written and spelled so badly as almost to defy the 
efforts of modern perseverance to decipher itt It com- 
mences as follows :— 

‘ By the late coming of this buck to you, you shall per- 
ceive that wild things be not ready at commandment ; 
for truly I have caused my keeper, yea and went fo: th 
with him myself on Saturday at night after 1 came home” 
[perhaps from visiting Cecil, possibly from London], 
“which was a marvel for me: but so desirous was I to have 
had one for Mr. Latimer to have sent after him to his wife's 
churching ; but there is no remedy but she must be churched 
without it.’ 

The conclusion must not be omitted :— 

‘From Grimsthorpe, this present Wednesday, at six 
o’clock in the morning, and like a sluggard in my bed. 

. Master Bertie’ [her future husband] ‘is at London, 
to conclude if he can with the heirs’ [the Marquis of 
Dorset, father of Lady Jane Grey, was the heir of the 
young Duke of Suffolk]: ‘for I be gladly discharge 
the trust wherein my lord did leave me’ [the charge, viz., 
of his two sons, just dead of the sweating-sickness], 
‘before I did, for any man’s pleasure, anything else?” 
[before marrying again]. 

There can be no reasonable doubt that it is to Hugh — 
Latimer that the Duchess refers in this letter ; and if we 
were to accept seriously what she writes, then we should ‘¢ 


* State Paper Office: Edward VI., vol. xiv. No. 47. 


Was Latimer Married ? 473 


suppose that Latimer had recently been married. Parsons 
the Jesuit, indeed, in one of his violent tirades against the 
Reformers, enumerates Latimer among the priests who, in 
defiance of their vow of celibacy, had contracted marriage; 
but as his authority is not great among historical inquirers, 
and his list is in some cases demonstrably false, his alle- 
gation that Latimer was married has always been treated 
as an idle invention. It may be admitted that Parsons’ 
assertion receives some countenance from the Duchess of 
Suffolk’s letter; and the question is, perhaps, worth a 
little more investigation, as an interesting fact in Latimer’s 
personal history. 

On the whole, however, we are inclined to treat the 
Duchess’s allusion to the churching of Latimer’s wife as a 
joke. The lady had a high reputation for wit ; and the 
rest of the letter, except the postscript, is conceived in a 
jocular vein. Parliament, it may be added, had at length 
placed the marriages of the clergy on their proper footing, 
and had decreed that they were no longer to be considered 
merely as things tolerated to prevent greater evils, but as 
honourable and lawful as the marriages of laymen. Latimer, 
also, in his sermons at Grimsthorpe, had made fre- 
quent allusion to the subject of marriage ; and in those 
circumstances, it seems not an improbable supposition, 
that a high-spirited and witty lady like the Duchess, her- 
self on the eve of her second marriage, was in the habit of 
joking the good old man about the prospect of his taking 
a wife ; and we have seen enough of Latimer to know 
that no one would more thoroughly enjoy a little pleasant 
joke. 

The road from Baxterley to Grimsthorpe lay through 
Leicestershire, past Latimer’s own birthplace; and we 
may believe that in his journeys he did not omit to inquire 
after and to visit any of the old friends or younger mem- 
bers of his family that were still surviving ; and though 
no record of any sermons preached in Leicestershire has 


474 Latimer under King Edward 


been preserved, he did not neglect to preach in a county 
which had so many claims upon him. 


uneasy anticipations of the future, the reign and the life of 
Edward were manifestly drawing toaclose. The young 
King had never been in very robust health ; in the spring 
of 1552 he was attacked with measles and small-pox, and 
was much enfeebled ; and before the commencement of 
1553 it was plain to all that a fatal consumption had settled 
on him. The public affairs of this period were not of 
very much importance. The Parliament of 1552 sanc- 
tioned the revised Book of Common Prayer; made some 
Acts for the better observance of fasts and holydays, and 
the services of the Church ; and, as we have already men- 
tioned, gave a higher position to the marriages of the 
clergy. Northumberland still bore chief sway; every 
position of influence was held by his creatures; and, 
under their auspices, the spoliation of the Church pro-. 
ceeded as before He was aware, however, that the 
people disliked him ; and the Parliament, having dared to 
thwart and oppose some of his measures, was dissolved, 
and a new one was summoned for March, 1553. Of its 
proceedings no note need be taken here ; its temper may 
be judged of by the fact already referred to, that it 
declined to passa Bill that no one should hold any Church 
living unless he was at least in deacon’s orders : from such 
ralers the Reformation had little to expect. 


* Accounts of the Chamberlains of the Borough of Leicester for -— 


year 1552-3 :— p 
Itm’ p4 for a gallon of wyne and peyres gyven to Mr. Lo and 


" Churchwardens’ accounts of Melton Mowbray, 1553 : — x 
Itm’ payd to John Hynmane and to Robert Bagworth for ryngin 
of ye great bell for Master Latimore SermoOM.........ceeceeseeseceeenseners 

Itm’ payd for Master Latymer Chargs .+++.1.sseeeccerseeesseececees ijs. vi 
From Chronicle of the Church of St. Martin, Leicester, by 7 North. 
Londen : Bell & Daldy, 1866. * 


Death of Edward VI. 475 


But it mattered little what spirit animated Parliament ; 
the reign of Edward was clearly verging to its termination, 
and all minds were occupied with the succession to the 
throne. The next heir to the throne, the Princess Mary, 
had resolutely refused to adopt the changes in religion 
which the Parliaments of Edward had introduced ; and 
she was, therefore, extremely odious to many of the 
English Reformers, who were desirous to set aside her 
claims. No one was more averse to her succession than 
the young King himself, who was deeply distressed by the 
fear that the Protestant religion, which he had been so 
anxious to establish, might be overthrown at his death ; 
and, prompted by the advice of Northumberland, who 
was ever at hand to promote his own intrigues, he caused 
a futile and illegal document to be prepared, assigning the 
crown, on his demise, to Lady Jane Grey, the eldest grand- 
daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, the 
youngest sister of Henry VIII. On this ill-advised 
‘device for the succession,’ with its long train of unhappy 
consequences, and on the other intrigues of the time, it 
would be superfluous here to dilate ; the general history 
of the period is only too copious on those melancholy 
subjects. : 

Edward died on July 6, commending to God, in his last 
words, the people of England, with the prayer that He 
would ‘defend the nation from Papistry, and would main- 
tain His true religion.’ His illness had been painful and 
lingering, but he endured it with exemplary piety and 
fortitude ; and in the midst of all his sufferings he found 
leisure to superintend the foundation of two of the noblest 
charities in the world, Christ’s Hospital, and St. Bartholo- 
mew’s, for the education of the young, and the healing of 
the sick. At his death Edward was only in his sixteenth 
year ; but he had already given indications of practical 
abilities of a very high order, such as would have admir- 
ably qualified him to wield the sceptre of that great nation 


476 Latimer under King Edward 


over which his birth placed him as sovereign. But his 
youth, and the failing health of the last two years of his 
life, threw the whole of the royal authority into the hands 
of Northumberland and his partisans. For the weakness, 
and lawless violence, and general discontent that disfigure 
his reign, Edward himself was in no way responsible; 
such misfortunes almost invariably attend a minority ; and 
it has been one of the great blessings of the English nation 
that its throne has so seldom been filled bya child. Many, 
who had trembled under the iron rule of Henry, regretted 
the want of his guiding hand to control the turbulent and 
impetuous reign of his successor. . 

Of Edward, individually, friendly historians have spoken 
in the most enthusiastic panegyric, and even Romish 
writers have expressed themselves in language of almost 
unalloyed approbation. His genuine and unaffected 
piety, his amiable disposition, his attention to religious 
duties, his care for the poor, his anxious wish to benefit 
his subjects, endeared him to his countrymen; and they 
lamented his untimely decease, as the Jews had mourned © 
the premature death of Josiah, the last hope of their 
nation. j 

In his reign the Reformation apparently made very con- 
siderable progress. All the characteristic doctrines and 
practices of the Church of Rome were abolished ; the 
mass had disappeared, with its dogmas of transubstantia- 
tion, and corporal presence, and propitiatory sacrifice ; 
purgatory, the invocation of saints, the adoration of images, 
the worship of the Virgin, the celibacy of the clergy, had 
all been purged out of the Reformed Church of England ; 
the services of the Church were entirely conducted in the 
native English language ; and the authorized creed was, 
in all matters of importance, in accordance with the creeds 
of all the Protestant Gace: abroad. These were great 
steps in advance of what had been effected under the 
reign of Henry ; but the real progress did not keep pace 


Progress and Perils 477 


with this great legislative growth of the Reformation : the 
Church was agitated by fierce internal debates; the 
Reformation had ceased to be synonymous, in clergy or in 
laity, with greater devotion to duty, and greater purity of 
life ; the Church had been pillaged to an extent that 
seriously crippled its usefulness ; a large proportion of the 
nation had been alienated from the Reformation, and a 
reaction had become imminent and inevitable. 

Thus there is a considerable amount of truth in both of 
the opposing views, maintained by different writers, as to 
the progress of the Reformation under Edward. To some 
it appears that scarcely anything had been accomplished in 
Henry’s time, and that in Edward’s reign the progress 


was rapid and satisfactory: while to others, Edward’s 


reign seems to have well-nigh proved fatal to all true 
religion ; and they accordingly regard his early death as a 


great national deliverance from impending ruin. Both 


theories have somewhat exaggerated that peculiar view of 
the truth which they have adopted, and have too much 
ignored that maintained by their opponents ; the reign of 
Edward was highly favourable to the progress of the 
Reformation, if we regard the external freedom and rapid 
development of the Church ; yet it seems equally certain 
that its practical operation was in many respects unfriendly 
to the prospects of true religion; and it is scarcely a 
paradox to assert that a prolongation of his rule, such as 
it had become under the misguidance of Northumber- ~ 
land, would have been more disastrous to the cause of 
the Reformation than the persecution of Mary. 


CHAPTER VIII 


LATIMER THE MARTYR 


(1553-1555) 


OR some days, the death of Edward was kept secret, 
Northumberland having not yet completed his de- 
signs for promoting the succession of Lady Jane Grey. Or 
July 11, however, finding concealment impossible, 1 
Council ordered her to be proclaimed Queen of England ; 
and they at the same time wrote to Mary, reminding 
that ‘she had been declared illegitimate and uninheritable 
to the crown,’ and requiring her to abandon her pretensions 
and not disturb the Government. 


the first: it was noted that her proclamation was coldly 
received by the citizens of London, notwithstanding theii 
known attachment to the Reformed faith. Mary’s head- 
quarters were in Suffolk, at Framlingham Castle ; the 
Roman Catholics rallied round her with alacrity; and 
many Protestants, trusting to her assurance that all her 
subjects should enjoy full liberty of conscience, repaired 
to her standard. Ina few days it was plain to every one 
that the cause of Lady Jane Grey was desperate ; her 
forces melted away ; the city looked on coldly ; even the 
Council were chiefly anxious to make peace with Mary; 
Ridley’s sermon at Paul’s Cross in defence of Lady Jane 


Grey’s title produced no conviction in the public mind; 
478 ‘9 


q 


Accession of Mary 479 


in nine days her reign was at an end, she ceased to bea 
queen, and was a prisoner in the Tower. 

On July 19, Mary was proclaimed Queen in London ; 
‘and,’ writes an eye-witness, ‘ great was the triumph here 
at London ; for my time I never saw the like, and by the 
report of others the like was never seen: the number of 
caps that were thrown up at the proclamation was not.to 
be told; the bonfires were without number ; and what 
with shouting and crying of the people, and ringing of 
bells, there could no man hear almost what another said.’ ? 

The political occurrences of Queen Mary’s reign; the 
execution of Northumberland, of his son, and of the 
accomplished Lady Jane Grey ; the Spanish marriage ; the 
rebellion of Wyat ; the French war ; these are sufficiently 
detailed in the general history of the period, and are 
foreign to the purpose of this biography. Our interest 
will be confined to the religious occurrences of her reign, 
and to the personal narrative of Latimer’s life. 

The great feature of her reign is, of course, the deliberate 
attempt, by force of persecution, to undo all that had been 
accomplished by the legislation of the previous twenty-four 
years ; and to bring back the English nation into submission 
to the Papal See. There seems only too good reason, 
unfortunately, for fearing that Mary’s attempt might have 
been successful had it been conducted with anything like 
prudence and moderation. For the Reformation had not 
gained in popularity in the closing years of the reign of 
Edward. The English nation has never loved sweeping 
changes; it has always disliked mere doctrinal contro- 
versies; it has, above all, manifested at all times an 
extreme aversion from any deference paid to foreign 
influence ; and thus, the active legislation of Edward’s 
reign changing everything, and apparently proposing to 
mould the constitution of the English Church after the 


* From an interesting fragment of a history of Mary’s reign, in the 
shape of letters, by a Protestant writer. Harleian MSS., 353. 


480 Latimer the Martyr 


pattern adopted in some small Swiss towns, alienated fro: 
the Reformation great numbers who had cheerfull 
acquiesced in the proceedings of Henry; who were 
willing to follow the guidance of Cranmer and Latimer : 
but drew back when Hooper and Northumberland seem 
to bear the chief sway. The golden opportunity of 
instructing the people during Edward’s reign had been let 
slip almost unemployed ; the universities were destitute o Cf 
students ; the churches were badly supplied with preachers; 
in many places the ordinances of religion were scarcely 
ever celebrated ; and that ignorance, which has always 
been the great strength of Romanism, was again settling 
down upon the land.t The old vices and corruptions of 
the religious houses and the monastic orders, had bee 
almost forgotten in the lapse of twenty years; but th 
tradition of their charity to the poor would be relate 
with fond exaggeration by those who were disguste 
with the shameless rapine of the nobles, and wer 
distressed by the general rise in the price of all th 
necessaries of life. 

A feeling of discontent, once excited, is never ver 
accurate in tracing the causes of the evils under which i 
suffers ; and the common people, labouring under many 
hardships, could easily be taught to assign them all to the 
great religious changes which had taken place in the 
nation. Thus, from a multiplicity of causes, there had 
been produced a widespread feeling of indifference to the 
Reformation, if not of positive aversion from it; and 
along with this there was a tendency to look back with a 
kindly regret to some of the abolished institutions round 
which time had thrown a halo of picturesque and venerable 


beauty. 
No accurate gauging of the extent to which oa 


I have not thought it necessary to subjoin proofs of statemen 
which could be substantiated by volumes of evidence, which, indeed, 
only gross ignorance can call in question. 


ee 


Influence of Persecution 481 


sentiments prevailed is possible ; but the ease with which 
the party of Lady Jane Grey was suppressed shows con- 
clusively the general apathy that prevailed, and the 
numerical weakness of the zealous Reformers. In these 
circumstances, almost all historians admit that, so far as 
human foresight can presage the future, the English nation 
might have been brought back again to its former faith by 
Mary, had she been politic enough to present the least 
repulsive side of Popery to her subjects ; had she been 
content with slow and gradual retrograde steps ; had she 
maintained for some time those promises of toleration and 
impartial justice which she had made at the commencement 
of her reign. And there were not wanting counsellors 
who strenuously urged her to adopt these measures : such 
was the advice of the Emperor Charles V. ; such was, in 
the main, the policy that Gardiner recommended. 

Happily for England, Mary was a morose bigot; her 
ideas of her duty would not allow of any compromise, or 
any temporizing with heretics; her husband probably 
encouraged her to the bleody course which she pursued ; 
and men were not wanting to lend themselves as willing 
instruments in any policy, however cruel, for purging the 
land from all stain of heresy. Allthat was most repugnant 
in the Romish religion was thus, not kept out of sight, but 
made conspicuous ; men’s eyes were thus rudely opened 
to the real character of that system whose inherent vices 
they had begun to forget and to palliate ; the true nature 
of the contest was made manifest; minor differences 


among Protestants were forgotten ; apathy was awakened > 


into earnestness ; the blood of the martyrs again became 
the seed of the Church ; the flames and the stake preached 
with more convincing eloquence than the most pious or 
learned preacher ; the doctrines of the Reformation found 
converts on all sides; and when Elizabeth succeeded to 


_ the throne the tide had turned, and the great majority of , 


the nation were clearly in favour of the Reformers, 
31 


482 Latimer the Martyr 


converted by those very means which had been employed 
as the surest instruments for confirming their allegiance to 
the Romish faith. a 
Gardiner was released from his confinement in the 
Tower, and was made Lord Chancellor, with the supreme 
administration of affairs. He was stern and resolute 
enough, and capable of any severity that might seem 
necessary to promote his purposes; but he was much 
too sagacious to be systematically cruel, and if Mary had 
been guided in all respects by his advice, her reign would 
have inflicted a more permanent injury on the Reforma- 
tion. But there were others whose impetuosity could not 
be kept within bounds; and in a very few days the 
promised moderation with which Mary had at first allayed 
the fears of her Protestant subjects was forgotten. 
Bonner’s chaplain, a foolish headstrong man like Bonne: 
himself, exhibited the insolence of his triumph in such a 
offensive manner, while preaching at Paul’s Cross, that a 
riot ensued ; and but for the interference of Bradford and 
Rogers, the two well-known martyrs, his folly would have 
cost him his life. This was at once seized as an excuse fo 
the first open proceedings against the Reformation : under 
colour of the necessity of preserving the public peace, all 
persons were forbidden to preach or expound Scripture 
without a special licence from the Queen. As it was very 
unlikely that any of the Reforming preachers would receive 
Mary’s licence, silence was thus enforced upon them all ; 
and a subsequent royal proclamation, empowering Gardiner 
to license whom he thought discreet and well qualified, and 
to authorize them to preach where he pleased, completed 
the discomfiture of the Reformers by filling their churches 
with active propagators of Romish doctrine. The foreig 
Protestants who had settled in London, encouraged by 
Edward and Cranmer, were ordered to leave England ; 
and many Englishmen who were alarmed at the aspect of 
affairs, fled in disguise, to find a refuge where some of them 


f) 


Reactionary Measures 483 


-_ 


: 


4 
; 


had found it before, among the Protestant cities of Germany 
and Switzerland. 

In October Parliament assembled, and proceeded to 
legislate on the religion of the country. Care had been 
taken, by somewhat violent methods it is said, to secure a 
majority favourable to Mary’s views ; and the legislation 
was of a very sweeping and summary kind. All the laws 
concerning religion passed in King Edward’s time, were, 
after some debate and opposition in the House of 
Commons, entirely repealed; and it was enacted that 
the nation should revert to those forms of religious 
worship which had been used in the last year of 
Henry’s reign. 

Even this Parliament, however, was not looked upon 
as sufficiently safe by Mary, and it was dissolved. More 
active measures were demanded by the ardent adherents 
of Popery, who clamoured for the punishment of their 
opponents, and were dissatisfied with the tardy progress 
hitherto made towards that consummation. Such of the 
clergy as had ventured to preach in defiance of the 
Queen’s proclamation, were deprived of their livings 
and imprisoned ; but this did not suffice to gratify that 
spirit of revenge which had been waiting for more than 
twenty years for its prey. The rebellion of Wyat, though 
unconnected with religion, furnished the excuse for pro- 
ceeding to harsher measures. The execution of Lady 
Jane Grey and her husband was almost an inevitable 
result ; for a rival was dangerous when treason had begun 
to manifest itself. Injunctions were issued for a new 
visitation of the clergy ; those who had married were to 
be deprived ; all the ceremonies and holidays of Henry’s 
reign were to be restored; and the people were to be 
compelled to come to church and join in the services 
of religion. 

A second and a third Parliament, both assembling in 
1554, completed the work. The nation was solemnly 


484 ~ Latimer the Martyr 


reconciled to Rome, and Cardinal Pole granted them 
absolution in the Pope’s name; all the laws passed by 
Henry against the Papal supremacy were formally re- 
pealed ; the statutes against heretics were revived in all 
their severity ; and the bishops, now invested with full 
authority to persecute, were instigated to that care 
of cruelty which has made the reign of Mary for ever 
infamous. 1 

It is superfluous to enter into the oft-debated question 
of the relative guilt of the various leading actors in those 
bloody scenes. Mary, Gardiner, Pole, Philip, even Bonner, 
have each found apologists who have exercised their learn- 


come down to us black with the execrations of ten genera | 
tions. The details of the martyrdomsas narrated in Foxe, 


gossip, or malicious inventions. But no skill in detecting 
minor flaws in Foxe’s voluminous and unmethodical 
compilations, has to any extent affected the general 
verdict of the English nation; no sophistry can conjure 
out of the history of England the gross and palpable fz 
that, in three years, nearly three hundred men a 


women, including some of the noblest and best of 


nounce their faith. 

Into the general martyrology of this wretched reig 
the black spot in the annals of England, we are happily 
not required to enter; we have traced it sufficiently far 
for the purposes of this narrative, and may now return 
to glean such notices of Latimer’s closing career as have 
been preserved. ; 

At Mary’s accession to the throne, Latimer seems t 
have been in Warwickshire, spending some days of happ y 
intercourse with ee Glover in the midst of the anxious 


Summoned to London 485 


and he had certainly not co-operated in any active steps 
for supporting Lady Jane Grey ; but he enjoyed too high 
a reputation with the common people to be left un- 
disturbed, and, accordingly, no time was lost in bringing 
his career, as the great apostle of the English Reformation, 
to a close. 

On September 4, the Council ordered a ‘letter of 
appearance to be directed to Mr. Hugh Latimer ;’* and 
a pursuivant was sent down, at the instigation of his old 
antagonist Gardiner, to summon him from Warwickshire 
to London. Latimer received from a pious humble 
Reformer, John Careless, of Coventry, timely warning 
of the approach of the messenger to arrest him; and 
if he had wished to escape, he had abundant opportunity 
for doing so. 

But Latimer knew too well that now the crisis was 
come for ‘playing the man’; and though he had always 
condemned any voluntary courting of martyrdom, he 
could perceive that now a faithful man might have lawful 
cause for exposing himself to death. Instead of attempt- 
ing to escape, therefore, he occupied himself in making 
preparations for his journey to London. The messenger 
marvelled at his resolution, but Latimer answered (the 
words have been preserved by his servant, who was 
probably present), ‘ My friend, you be a welcome messenger 
tome. And be it known unto you, and to all the world, 
that I go as willing to London at this present, being called 
by my Prince to render a reckoning of my doctrine, as 
ever I was at any place in the world. I doubt not but 
that God, as He hath made me worthy to preach His 


“Word before two excellent princes, so will He able me 


to witness the same unto the third, either to her comfort, 
or discomfort eternally.’ ? 
The pursuivant, having delivered his summons, returned 


* Privy Council Book: Harleian MSS., 643. 
? Bernher’s Intreduction to Sermons on the Lord's Prayer. 


486 Latimer the Martyr 


to London, leaving Latimer to follow. This unwonted 
conduct, Bernher thinks, was adopted by the expr 
orders of the Council, to allow Latimer the opportunity 
of escaping ; for ‘they knew that his constancy should” 
deface them in their Popery, and confirm the godly in 
their truth.’ The motives of the Council were, of course, 
kept secret; and Bernher’s conjecture need not be 
received as of much authority: still, as Latimer had 
not, in point of fact, been guilty of any action that 
rendered him liable to punishment, it is by no means 
an improbable supposition that the Council did hope 
to work upon his fears ; and beyond all question it would 
have been a great triumph for the Romish party, if they 
could have induced so conspicuous a champion of the 
Reformation as Latimer to abandon his post through 
fear of personal injury. 

Latimer, however, had no hesitation as to the course 
which he ought to pursue. He at once repaired to 
London, to appear before the Council at Westminster. — 

It was in no vain hope of safety that he undertook 
the journey ; so deep-rooted in his mind was the con- 
viction that he was going to his death, that as he bade 
farewell to his dear friends at Baxterley, he must have 
felt as St. Paul did when he held his last interview with 
his converts at Ephesus. On his way to the Council he 
passed through Smithfield, the customary place of martyr- 
dom, though not yet rendered infamous by the cruelty 
of Bonner; and, with a presentiment of his fate, he 
remarked ‘merrily,’ says the old chronicler, ‘that Smith- 
field had long groaned for him.’ 

‘On September 13,’ according to the brief narrative 
of the Privy Council Book,: ‘Mr. Hugh Latimer, clerk, — 
appeared before the Lords, and for his seditious demeanour 
was committed to the Tower, there to remain a close 
prisoner, having attending upon him one Austy’ [Augustine 

* Harleian MSS., 643. 


Before the Council 487 


Bernher |, ‘his servant.’ Latimer had not, like Cranmer 
or Ridley, committed any overt act of sedition ; and the 
seditious demeanour for which he was imprisoned refers 
exclusively to his personal bearing when before the 
Council. Gardiner, his most determined opponent, was 
present, and we need not be at any loss to understand, 
therefore, the nature of the examination to which he 
would be subjected, or of the promises which he would 
be required to make. 

‘He did behave himself stoutly in Christ’s cause before 
the Council,’ says Bernher with his customary vagueness," 
‘and was content to bear most patiently all the mocks 
and taunts given him by the scornful and pestilent Papists.’ 
Latimer himself has given us one short but eminently 
satisfactory glance into the proceedings of his trial. 
‘Diotrephes’ [i.e., Gardiner, who ‘ loved the pre- 
eminence’], ‘now of late did ever harp upon unity, 
unity’ [the never-failing theme of the Romish con- 
troversialist]. ‘Yea, sir,’ quoth I, ‘but in verity, not in 
Popery. Better is diversity, than a unity in Popery. I 
had nothing again but scornful taunts, with command- 
ment to the Tower.’ Next day Cranmer was sent to 
the same prison ; Ridley was already confined there ; and 
thus the three great martyrs of the English Reformation, 
who had been for years associated in the glorious task 
of purifying the Church of England, were brought 
together for a short period of calm retrospect and 
preparation, before the fiery trial which awaited them.3 

* Introduction to Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer. 

2 Conference between Ridley and Latimer in prison. Fovxe, vol. vii. 
ater the green, he met Rutter, one of the warders, to whom he 
cried, in that cheery voice which every one liked to hear, “What, 
my old friend, how do you do? I am come to be your neighbour 
again.” ... Inthe reign of Henry VIII. the lieutenant of the Tower, 
who was the actual prison warder, had a new house built for his 
accommodation in a courtly quarter of the prison under the belfry, 


which house was afterwards known as the lieutenant’s lodgings. 
Close by his house on either side stood two smaller houses for his 


488 Latimer the Martyr 


The phrase, ‘a close prisoner,’ in Latimer’s senten 
was no figure of speech ; the unfortunate prisoners v 
rigorously confined within their cells, which were 1 
damp, and unwholesome even to the most vigorous youthful 
frames, and threatened to be fatal to men enfeebled by 


was unknown in those rougher ages ; and it was not until 
it was reported that ‘Cranmer and divers others have 


the Council authorized the lieutenant of the Tower to 
suffer them ‘to have the liberty of the walk within the 
garden of the Tower.’? The rigour exhibited towards 
these imprisoned prelates was no exceptional severity, 
but only the customary prison discipline of the period, 
Fortunately, they were not entirely destitute of some 
mitigations of their confinement, as their own faithful 
servants were allowed to attend them, and they were 
permitted to have intercourse with each other in writing. — 

Latimer’s demeanour in prison was such as might have — 
been anticipated from what we have seen of his life. He 
spent much of his time in prayer, and in the careful reading ~ 
of the New Testament, which he now perused with all the ~ 
earnest attention of one who knew that he would soon be © 
called upon to defend, before an unfriendly audience, 
those great truths of God’s Word in whose strength he © 
had lived, and for which he was now willing to die. So 
calm and self-possessed was he, that he still retained that © 
quiet sense of humour which had distinguished him — 
through life ; and even the seriousness of his position, and ~ 


officers; that to the east, in the garden, became famous in after- 

times as the prison of Latimer and Raleigh ; that to the orth, on the 

green, became famous as the prison of Lady Jane Grey. The house 

in the garden was called the ‘“ Garden-House.” Hepworth Dixon 

Her Majesty's Tower, p. 190. ae 
® Council Book, ubi supra. 


Latimer in the Tower 489 


the gloominess of the Tower, could not repress his pleasant 
tendency to an occasional joke. His mind was made up ; 
the way of duty was clear; he had deliberately chosen 
the part he was to play, and he trusted that by God’s help 
he would be carried in safety to the end, whatever might 
be the dangers through which he was required to pass. 

Even after his imprisonment in the Tower, he might, 
had he so minded, have regained his liberty. On the day 
of Mary’s coronation (October 1), such was the stir and 
excitement, that ‘neither gates, doors, nor prisoners were 
looked to’; but like another confessor, who was then 
urged to avail himself of so favourable an opportunity, 
Latimer would have said, ‘To escape were to make myself 
guilty ; I know no just cause why I should be in prison ; 
I will expect’ [wait for] ‘God’s will.’ ? 

Of the general character and conduct of his prison life, 
Foxe has given us an excellent summary, which coming 
to us ratified with the commendation of Bernher, Latimer’s 
attendant in prison, may be received as in all respects 
trustworthy. 

‘He sustained most patient imprisonment a long time, 
yet he showed himself not only patient but also cheerful. 
Yea, such a valiant spirit the Lord gave him, that he was 
able not only to despise the terribleness of prisons and 
torments, but also to deride and laugh to scorn the doings 
of his enemies ; as it is not unknown to the ears of many, 
what he answered to the lieutenant, being then in the 
Tower : for when the lieutenant’s man upon a time came 
to him, the aged father, kept without fire in the frosty 
winter, and well-nigh starved with cold, merrily bade the 
man tell his master, that if he did not look the better to 
him, perchance he would deceive him. The lieutenant’ 
[Sir John Brydges, says H. Dixon], ‘hearing this, 
bethought himself of these words, and fearing lest that 
indeed he thought to make some escape, beginneth to 


* Narrative of Dr. Sandys. Fovwe, vol. viii. p. 593. 


490 Latimer the Martyr 4 
charge him with his words, reciting the same unto him 
which his man had told him before, how that if he were 
not better looked unto, perchance he would deceive him. — 

‘“-Yea, master Lieutenant, so I said,” quoth he, “ for 
you look, I think, that I should burn ; bat except you let 
me have some fire, I am like to deceive your expectation, 
for I am like here to starve for cold.” 

‘Many such-like answers and reasons, merry, but savoury, 
coming not from a vain mind, but from a constant and 
quiet reason, proceeded from that man, declaring a firm 
and stable heart, little passing’ [caring] ‘ for all this great 
blustering of their terrible threats, but rather deriding : 
same.’ ? 

The winter months in the Tower were spent by Latimer 
neither unprofitably, nor, on the whole, unpleasantly, i 
written conference with Ridley. The prisoners were 
apparently allowed to communicate with each other in 
writing ; at all events, their servants were allowed to pass 
from one cell to the other, and no sufficient care was used 
to prevent them holding intercourse through their inter- 
vention. They were well aware that they would soon be 
called upon publicly to defend their faith, and they wisely 
employed their leisure in the Tower in preparing them- 
selves for this formidable ordeal. Ridley, especially, as. 
the youngest of the three, and least experienced in braving 
danger and death, was anxious to profit by the teamiall 
and experience of his associates, and of Latimer in ap 
ticular, for there seems to have been some difficulty in 
maintaining communication with Cranmer. 

In pursuance of this wish, Ridley appears to have written 
down his reasons for rejecting the mass, and to have sent 
to Latimer and Cranmer, who made copious marginal note: 
on what was written. Still further to prepare himself for 


* Foxe, vol. vii. p. 464: posterity would gladly have exchanged some 
of Foxe’s own hors digressions for a few of Latimer’s ‘merry 
sayings.’ 


A Joint Defence 491 


the combat, Ridley drew up a series of objections which 
an antagonist might urge against his conduct, containing 
the customary arguments which Romish polemics in all 
ages have advanced against Protestantism ; to each ob- 
jection he appended what he deemed an appropriate and 
sufficient reply : and this also was submitted to Latimer for 
further comment. These two papers, the conjoint work of 
Ridley and Latimer, a brief but admirable defence of 
Protestantism against Popery, were carefully preserved : 
Ridley gave copies of them to one of his former chap- 
lains, and they were printed in 1555, under the title of 
‘Certain Godly, Learned, and Comfortable Conferences 
between the two reverend fathers, and holy martyrs of 
Christ, Nicolas Ridley, late Bishop of London, and Hugh 
Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester, during the time 
of their imprisonments.” * Even asa controversial manual 
the book is not without its value, it is so admirably clear 
and scriptural, and it supplies the biographer with inter- 


esting glimpses into the prison life and the private 


character of the writers. The conclusion of the work is 


| singularly touching in its simple honest earnestness and 


faith. 

‘Ye see, good father’ [it is Ridley that writes], ‘how 
I have in words only made, as it were, a flourish before the 
fight which I shortly look after, and how I have begun to 
prepare certain kinds of weapons to fight against the 
adversaries of Christ, and to muse with myself how the 
darts of the old enemy may be borne off, and after what 
sort I may smite him again with the Sword of the Spirit. I 
also learn hereby to be in use with armour, and to assay 
how I can go armed. 

‘In Tynedale, where I was born, not far from the Scot- 


_ tish borders, I have known my countrymen watch night 


and day in their harness, such as they had, that is, in their 


* Printed in Foxe in a very careless and confused manner, the two 
conferences being jumbled into one. 


492 Latimer the Martyr : 


jacks, and their spears in their hands (you call them 
northern gads), especially when they had any privy warn 
ing of the coming of the Scots. And so doing, althougt 
at every such bickering some of them spent their lives 
yet by such means, like pretty men, they defended their 
country. And those that so died, I think that before 
God they died in a good quarrel, and their offspring and 
progeny all the country loved them the better for thei 
fathers’ sakes. 

‘And in the quarrel of Christ our Saviour, in the defence 
of His own Divine ordinances, by the which He giveth 
unto us life and immortality ; yea, in the quarrel of faith 
and Christian religion, wherein resteth our everlasting 
salvation, shall we not watch? Shall we not go always 
armed, ever looking when our adversary (which, like a 
roaring lion, seeketh whom he may devour) shall come 
upon us by reason of our slothfulness? Yea, and woe 
be unto us, if he can oppress us at unawares, which un- 
doubtedly he will do, if he find us sleeping. Let us awake, 
therefore ; for if the good man of the house knew what 
hour the thief would come, he would surely watch, and not 
suffer his house to be broken up. Let us awake, there- 
fore, I say, and let us not suffer our house to be broken 
up. . 
‘Good father, forasmuch as I have determined with 
myself to pour forth these my cogitations into your 
bosom, here, methinketh, I see you suddenly lifting up 
your head towards heaven, after your manner, and then 
looking upon me with your prophetical countenance, and 
speaking unto me with these or like words; “Trust not 
my son” (I beseech you, vouchsafe me the honour of this 


but in power. And remember always the words of 
Lord, ‘Do not imagine aforehand what and how you 


| 


‘Well-buckled Armour’ 493 


speak, for it shall be given you even in that same hour, what 
ye shall speak ; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit 
of your Father which speaketh in you.’” 

‘I pray you, therefore, father, pray for me, that I may cast 
my whole care upon Him, and trust upon Pia in all perils. 
For I know and am surely persuaded, that whatsoever I 
can imagine or think aforehand, it is nothing except He 
assist me with His Spirit, when the time is. I beseech you 
therefore, father, pray for me, that sucha complete harness 
of the Spirit, such boldness of mind, may be given unto 
me, that I may out of a true faith say with David, “I will 
not trust in my bow, and it is not my sword that shall save 
me,” etc. I beseech you pray, pray that I may enter this 
fight only in the name of God, and that when all is past, I, 
being not overcome, through His gracious aid, may remain 
and stand fast in Him till that day of the Lord, in the 
which, to them that obtain the victory, shall be given the 
lively manna to eat, and a triumphant crown for ever- 
more. 

‘Now, father, I pray you help me to buckle on this gear 
a little better ; for ye know the deepness of Satan, being 
an old soldier, and you have collared with him ere now, 
blessed be God that hath ever aided you so well. I 
suppose he may well hold you at the bay. But truly, 
he will not be so willing, I think, to join with you, as 
with us younglings. Sir, I beseech you, let your servant 
read this my babbling unto you; and now and then, as it 
shall seem unto you best, let your pen run on my book. 
Spare not to blot my paper; I give you good leave.’ 

To this Latimer, perhaps from want of paper, merely 
appends the following brief note :— 

‘Sir, I have caused my man not only to read your 
armour unto me, but also to write it out. For it is not 
only no bare armour, but also well-buckled armour. I 
see not how it could be better. I thank you even from 


_ the bottom of my heart for it; and my prayer shall you 


494 Latimer the Martyr © 


not lack, trusting that you do the like for me. For, indeed 
there is the help.’ a 

He had, however, in a previous part of the conference, 
a epaientad Ridley’s wishes, and given a touching answer 
to his request. 

‘Good my lord, be of good cheer in the Lord, with due 
consideration’ [of] : what He requireth of you, and what 
He doth promise you. Our common enemy shall do no 
more than God will permit him: “God is faithful, which 
will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength.” Be 
at a point what ye will stand unto, stick unto that, and let 
them both say and do what they list. They can but kill 
the body, which otherwise is of itself mortal. Neither 
yet shall they do that when they list, but when God wi 
suffer them, when the hour appointed is come. To use 
many words with them, it shall be but in vain, now that 
they have a bloody and deadly law prepared for them 
But it is very requisite that ye give a reasonable account 
of your faith, if they will quietly hear you; else ye know, 
in a wicked place of judgment a man may keep silence, 
after the example of Christ. Let them not deceive you 
with their sophistical sophisms and fallacies; you know 
that many false things have more appearance of truth, 
than things that be most true. Therefore Paul giveth 
us a watchword, saying, “‘ Let no man deceive you with 
likeliness of speech.” Neither is it requisite, that with the 
contentious you should follow strife of words, which tend 
to no edification, but to the subversion of the hearers, and 
the vain bragging and ostentation of the adversaries. 

‘Fear of death doth most persuade a great number. Be 
well ware of that argument ; for that persuaded Shaxton, 
as many men thought, after that he had once made a good 
profession openly before the judgment-seat. The flesh is 


« In the edition of Ridley, by the Parker Society, this passage is. 
erroneously assigned to Ridley ; even Foxe has correctly given i 
to Latimer. 


‘Pray for Me’ 495 


weak ; but the willingness of the spirit shall refresh the 


weakness of the flesh. The number of the “criers under 
the altar” must needs be fulfilled. If we be segregated 
thereunto, happy be we. This is the greatest promotion 
that God giveth in this world, to be such Philippians, 
“to whom it is given not only to believe, but also to 
suffer,” etc. 

‘But who is able to do these things? Surely all our 
ability, all our sufficiency, is of God. He requireth and 
promiseth. Let us declare’ [i.e., manifest] ‘our obedience 
to His will, when it shall be requisite, in the time of 
trouble, yea, in the midst of the fire. When that number 
is fulfilled, which I ween shall be shortly, then have at the 
Papists, when they shall say, ‘‘ Peace, all things are safe,” 
when Christ shall come to keep His great parliament, to 
the redress of all things that be amiss. But He shall nat 


come, as the Papists feign Him, to hide Himself, and to\ 
play bo-peep, as it were, under a piece of bread; but He | 


shall come gloriously, to the terror and fear of all Papists, 
but to the great consolation and comfort of all that will 
here suffer for Him. ‘Comfort yourselves with these 
words,” 

‘Lo! sir, here have I blotted your paper vainly, and 
played the fool egregiously. But so I thought better 
than not to do your request at this time. Pardon me, 
and pray for me: pray for me, I say ; pray for me, I say. 
For I am sometime so fearful, that I would creep into 
a mouse-hole ; sometime God doth visit me again with 
His comfort. So He cometh and goeth, to teach me 
to feel and to know mine infirmity, to the intent to 
give thanks to Him that is worthy, lest I should rob 
Him of His duty, as many do. Fare you well.’ 

Outside observers, who thought themselves shrewd 
judges of character, used to remark that ‘ Latimer leaned 
to Cranmer, Cranmer leaned to Ridley, and Ridley leaned 
to his own singular wit’ ; but Ridley would have been the 


496 Latimer the Martyr ok 


first to disclaim the honour thusascribed tohim. Latime 
was unquestionably the most resolute of the three, and his 
courage was felt by the others as a source of m« 
strength. But all of them looked to the same Di 
Hand, as alone able to sustain them in the terrible tria 
that awaited them ; and_all were conscious of their own 
weakness and of the insufficiency of mere human wisd 
to guide them aright in exposing the subtleties with w 
their adversaries sought to ensnare them, and seduce th 
from their integrity. The chief interest in these 
ferences lies in their revealing to us the holy and endearing 
friendship which subsisted between the three venerable 
martyrs. There is nowhere in history any instance of 
friendship more pleasing or touching than that-which 
bound together in kindest sympathy, in mutual esteem 
noblest self-sacrifice, this triumvirate of England’s bray 
heroes. Further glimpses into their holy intimacy will be 
afforded us as the narrative proceeds. 
Wyat’s insurrection conferred an unexpected pleasure 
on the three friends. The Tower was so crowded wit! 
the unfortunate victims of that foolish rebellion, that 
Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, ‘as men not to be ac 
counted of,’ were ‘put altogether in one prison.’ If it 
was designed as a mark of ignominy, it was received by 
the three as a great blessing: ‘God be thanked,’ say: 
Latimer, ‘it was to our great joy and comfort.’ To add 
to their satisfaction, John Bradford, the convert of 
Latimer, and bosom friend of Ridley, who had been for 
some time confined in the King’s Bench prison, was 
removed to the Tower, and ‘thrust into the same 
chamber with them.’ There was probably no man 2 


and the reader may well believe that the earnest praye 
and loving pious intercourse of four such men wo 


Conveyed to Oxford 497 


‘We did together read over the New Testament,’ says 
Latimer, ‘with great deliberation and painful study,’ 
anxiously endeavouring to discover what Christ and the 
Apostles had taught on the subject of the Holy Com- 
munion ; for this they knew would be the doctrine on 
which they would be required, either to conform their 
belief to the teaching of the Romish Church, or to defend 
their opinion with their lives. To such men, as to others, 
life was sweet; and while they hoped and prayed that 
God might strengthen them even for the terrors of the 
stake, they were not inclined rashly to sacrifice themselves 
for an opinion which they had not carefully and deli- 
berately examined. 

For two months, from the beginning of February till 
the end of March, the four pious friends enjoyed their 
intimate fellowship with each other, to their mutual 
comfort and joy. Preparations were in the meantime 
being made for a public disputation at Oxford, in which 
Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were to be pitted against 
the chosen theological gladiators of the two universities, 
to the open disgrace and discomfiture, it was hoped, of 
the Protestant champions. 

On March 8, 1554, the Council sent a letter to the 


_ Lieutenant of the Tower, directing him to deliver to Sir 


| 
: 


} 
y 
4 
| 
i 


John Williamst ‘the bodies’ [persons] ‘of the late 
Archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor Ridley, and Mr. 
Latimer, to be by him conveyed to Oxford.’ Some few 
days later, ‘a little before Easter,’ 3 which fell that year 


_on March 25, they were suddenly conveyed to Windsor, 


1 
} 


| and thence to Oxford, ‘and were suffered to have nothing 
with them but what they carried upon them.’ Not 


* According to Martyn, ‘Thursday, March 8, Cranmer, Ridley, and 
Latimer came out of the Tower, and so to Brentford, where Sir John 
Williams received them, and so to Oxford.’ See Maitland, Reformation, 
p. 431. 2 Council Book: Harleian MSS. : Foxe says March Io. 

3 So Ridley says (letter to Grindal) : Foxe says ‘about the roth of 
April,’ which was a fortnight after Easter. 


32 


498 Latimer the Martyr 


impossibly before bidding what they must have belie 
to be a final-farewell to Bradford, they may have jo 
in some solemn though furtive participation of the 
Communion : just as some weeks before, ‘ with a se 
book, a manchet’ [small loaf of fine bread], ‘and a 
of wine,’ Bradford had joined in the sacred rite with he 
jailer of his former prison, whom ‘he had begotten in his 
bonds.’ a 
Convocation, sitting under the presidency of Bonnet 
(in the vacancy of the see of Canterbury), had appointed 
certain divines, of whom Weston was chief, to proceed 
to Oxford, and conduct the public disputation agains 
Latimer and his companions ; and Gardiner had drawr 
up the Articles on which the discussion was to be main- 
- tained. Cambridge and Oxford had selected their ablest 
theologians to assist in overthrowing the three grea 
supporters of the Reformation ; and Oxford was in 2 
tumult of excitement. The three bishops were se Da. 
rated from each other, that there might be no comm ni- 
cation on the matters to be debated. Ridley was sent t 
the house of Alderman Irish, where the ill-temper of 
Alderman’s wife rendered fea very uncomfortable : Cran- 
mer was immured in Bocardo, the common prison : an 
Latimer was lodged in the house of one of the bailiffs 
It was hoped, no doubt, that the defendants might, from 
want of mutual intercourse, contradict each other in thei 
arguments ; but, as we have seen, they had already spen’ 
some months in carefully discussing the questions likely 
to be submitted to them, and were therefore preparec 
with a well-chosen line = defence. . 
The disputation began on Saturday, April 14, with a 
the pomp of academic display. The ‘ Mass of the Hol 
Ghost’ was solemnly sung ; then a brilliant procession 
was organized; the cross in the van, followed by the 
choristers, the regents, proctors, doctors of law, doctors 
of divinity; the greater dignitaries in the centre dul} 


| 
' 


| 


| 


The Scene in St. Mary’s 499 


preceded by the beadles ; and the mob of undergraduates 
bringing up the rear. The Commission met in the vene- 
rable St. Mary’s Church, the thirty-three Commissioners 
occupying seats of state in front of the altar; the rest of 
the building being thronged with listeners, whom even 
the religio loci could not awe into decorous demeanour. 
Cranmer was first called, and answered with such modesty 
that some of the bystanders were affected even to tears. 
Ridley next appeared before them, and declining to assent 
to the Articles, a day was appointed on which he should 
publicly prove his objections to them. 

‘Last of all came in Master Latimer, with a kerchief and 
two or three caps on his head, his spectacles hanging by a 
string at his breast, and a staff in his hand, and was set in 
a chair; for so was he suffered by the prolocutor’ 
[Weston]. ‘And after his denial of the Articles, when 
he had Wednesday appointed for disputation, he alleged 
age, sickness, disuse, and lack of books, saying that he 
was almost as meet to dispute as to be captain of Calais ; 
but he would, he said, declare his mind either by writing 
or word, and would stand to all they could lay upon his 
back ; complaining, moreover, that he was permitted to 
have neither pen nor ink, nor yet any book but only the 
New Testament there in his hand, which, he said, he had 
read over seven times deliberately, and yet could not find 
the mass in it, neither the marrow-bones nor sinews of the 
same. At which words the Commissioners were not a 
little offended ; and Dr. Weston said, that he would make 
him grant that it had both marrow-bones and sinews in 
the New Testament. To whom Latimer said again: 
“That you will never do, Master Doctor ;” and so forth- 
with they put him to silence; so that whereas he was 
desirous to tell what he meant by those terms, he could 
not be suffered. There was a very great press and throng 
of people, and one of the beadles swooned by reason 
thereof, and was carried into the vestry.’ 


500 Latimer the Martyr . 


In the three days thus allowed him, Latimer was of 
course busily occupied in preparing for his public dispu- 
tation ; and fearing the weakness of his memory, which 
age, and that ‘school of obliviousness,’ the Tower, had 
considerably impaired, he determined to avoid oral debate 
as much as possible, and to answer the Articles in a written 
declaration. On Monday and Tuesday, Cranmer and 
Ridley were engaged before the Commissioners ; and on 
Wednesday morning, at eight o’clock, Latimer appeared 
to answer to the Articles. In such a place, surrounded by 
men of learning and culture, it might have been expected 
that he would have been received with that courtesy which 
was due to his age and his reputation. But the scholars 
of Oxford, roused into rudeness and ferocity by the 
passions of the day, had forgotten that refinement which 
learning is supposed to communicate. Not a single 
member of the University, Ridley complains,* had 
offered to any of the venerable prelates any manner of 
favour. To the disgrace of Oxford, Latimer was received 
with bitter taunts, and his defence was interrupted with 
hissings and scornful laughings. y 

The Articles on which he was required to declare his 
belief had been skilfully selected by Gardiner, and related. 
to the three great Romish tenets on the mass. They were 
as follows :— b. 

‘1. In the sacrament of the altar, by the virtue of God’s 
word pronounced by the priest, there is really present the 
natural body of Christ, conceived of the Virgin Mary, 
under the kinds of the appearance of bread and wine; 
in like manner His blood.’ [The doctrine of the real 
presence. | ; 

‘2. After the consecration there remaineth no substance 
of bread and wine, nor any other substance, but the sub- 
stance of God and man.’ [Transubstantiation. } ; 

‘3, In the mass there is the lively sacrifice of the Church, 


* Letters, p. 364. 


Latimer’s Answer 501 


which is propitiatory as well for the sins of the quick as of 
the dead.’ [Sacrifice of the mass.] 

To these conclusions Latimer briefly replied :-— 

‘zr. Concerning the first conclusion, methinketh it is set 
forth with certain new-found terms that be obscure, and 
do not sound according to the Scripture. Howbeit, so far 
as I understand it, thus do I answer, plainly, though not 
without peril of my life. I answer that for the right cele- 
bration of the Lord’s Supper, there is none other presence 
of Christ required than a spiritual presence; and this 
presence is sufficient for a Christian man, as the presence 
by which we abide in Christ, and Christ abideth in us, to 
the obtaining of eternal life, if we persevere therein. And 
this same presence may most suitably be called a real 
presence, for it is a presence not feigned but true and 
faithful. And this I here rehearse lest some sycophant or 
scorner should suppose me, with the Anabaptists, to make 
nothing else of the sacrament but a bare and naked sign. 
But as for that which is feigned of many concerning the 
corporal presence, I, for my part, take it but for a 
Papistical invention; and therefore I think it is utterly 
to be rejected. 

‘2. Concerning the second conclusion, I dare be bold to 
say, that it hath no stay or ground in God’s Holy Word, 
but is a thing invented by man, and therefore to be reputed 
and had as false: and I had almost said, as the mother 
and nurse of all other errors: and my lords the tran- 
substantiators seemed to be involved in the — of 
me Nestorians. 

‘3. The third conclusion, as far as I understand it, 
seemeth subtilly to sow sedition against the offering 
which Christ Himself offered for us in His own person, 
according to that pithy place of the Hebrews which 
saith, ‘Christ having His own self made purgation of 
our sins”: and a little after, “that He might be a 
merciful and faithful high priest concerning those things 


502 Latimer the Martyr . 


which are to be done with God, for the taking away of 
our sins.” So that the expiation of men’s sins may 
thought rather to depend on this, that Christ was 
offering priest, than that He was offered, were it not that 
He was offered of Himself: and therefore it is needless 
that He should be offered of any other. I will spe 
nothing of the wonderful presumption of man, to dare 
to attempt this thing without a manifest vocation, specially — 
in that it tendeth to the overthrowing and making fruitless 
(if not wholly, yet partly) of the cross of Christ. For 
truly it is no base’ or mean thing to offer Christ ; and ; 
therefore worthily a man may say to my lords and masters — 
the officers, By what authority do ye this, and who gave 
ye this authority? Where? When? ‘A man cannot,’ 
saith the Baptist, ‘take anything except it be given him 
from above’; much less then may any man presume to 
usurp any honour before he be thereto called. 
‘What meaneth Paul when he saith, “ They that serve 
at the altar are partakers of the altar,” and then he addeth, - 
“So the Lord hath ordained that they that preach the 
gospel shall live of the gospel”? Whereas he should 
have said, The Lord hath ordained that they that sacrifice 
at mass Euonid live of their sacrificing.’ 
After citing some similar passages, he proceeded to 
complain of the treatment he had received on his previous) 
appearance before the Commissioners. " 
‘I have spoken in my time before two Kings more than 
once, two or three hours together, without interruption ; 
but now, that I may speak the truth (by your leave), I 
could not be suffered to declare my mind before you, no 
not by the space of a quarter of an hour, without snatches, 
revilings, checks, rebukes, taunts, such as I have not felt” 
the like in such an audience all my life long. Surely it 
cannot but be a heinous offence that I have given. But 
what was it? Forsooth I had spoken of the four marrow- 
bones of the mass; the which kind of speaking I never 


The Mass Unscriptural 503 


read to be a sin against the Holy Ghost. I could not be 
allowed to show what I meant by my metaphor ; but, sir, 
now, by your favour, I will tell your mastership what I 
meant. The first is “the Popish Consecration,” which 
hath been called a God’s-body-making: the second is 
“Transubstantiation” : the third is “the Missal Obla- 
tion”: the fourth, “Adoration”: these chief and 
principal portions, parts, and points, belonging or 
incident to the mass, and most esteemed and had in 
price in the same, I call ‘the marrow-bones of the mass.”’” 

These main points of the mass, he repeated, he had 
never discovered in Scripture: he had read the New 
Testament over seven times with great deliberation ; he 
had studied it with men of such eminent learning as 
Cranmer, Ridley, and Bradford, when they were together 
in the Tower, and they could find no other presence of 
Christ’s body and blood in the New Testament than a 
spiritual presence ; nor did Scripture say that the mass 
was a sacrifice for sins, but rather that the sacrifice ‘ which 
Christ did on the cross was perfect, holy, and good ; that 
God did require none other; nor that never again to be 
done, but was pacified with that only omnisufficient and 
most painful sacrifice of that sweet slain Lamb for our sins.’ 

He concluded in words of solemn earnestness : ‘Thus 
have I answered your conclusions, as I will stand unto, 
with God’s help, to the fire. And after this, I am able to 
declare to the majesty of God, by His invaluable Word, 
that I die for the truth ; for I assure you if I could grant 
to the Queen’s proceedings, and endure by the Word of 
God, I would rather live than die; but seeing they be 
directly against God’s Word, I will obey God more than 
man, and so embrace the stake.’ * 

Latimer had with great labour written out his answers 


* There are several widely different copies of this document. The 
above is in the main taken from Foxe, compared forthe first time with 
the official account of the disputation, compiled by William White, of 
Merton College, preserved in the Harleian MSS., 3642. 


504 Latimer the Martyr 


to the Articles, in order to save himself the fatigue and 
annoyance of oral disputation, which might be too much 
for his feeble health and impaired memory. He was not, 
however, allowed to escape ; his very weakness probably 
induced his opponents to attack him in the hope of 
achieving a signal victory. But their anticipations 
triumph were doomed to disappointment. Latimer was 
driven, by the weakness of his memory, to abandon those 
citations from the Fathers which were too much relied on 
in the Protestant defence, and to confirm his doctrines by 
a simple appeal to what was the real strength of the 
Reformed creed, the Word of God. It would only fatigue 
a modern reader to give the whole of the disputation, but 
aspecimen of the ‘baiting’ (well so called) to which 
Latimer was subjected, and of his defence, will not be 
unacceptable. After some preliminary fencing on minor 
matters, Smith, one of those appointed to oppose Latimer, 
and whose singular lecture at Oxford we noticed, some 
sixteen years before, recalled the debate to the real ques- 
tion at issue. q 

‘ Smith“ I ask whether Christ’s body be really in the 
sacrament?” 

‘ Latimer— I trust I have obtained of Mr. Proloctall 
that no man shall exact that thing of me which is not in 
me” [an oral discussion]. ‘And I am sorry that this 
worshipful audience should be deceived of their expecta- ’ 
tion for my sake. I have given up my mind in writing to 
Mr. Prolocutor.” j 

‘ Smith_—“ Whatsoever ye have given up, it shall be — 
registered among the acts” [the official account of the 
discussion ]. Bee 

‘ Latimer— Disputation requireth a good memory; — 
but my memory is gone clean, and marvellously weaken . 
and never the better, I wis, for the prison.” ; 

‘Weston (the prolocutor). —“ How long have ye been in 
prison ?” 


| 


Cross-examination 505 


‘ Latimer—“ These three quarters of this year” [not 
quite, only seven months]. 

‘ Weston.—“ And I was in prison six years.” 

‘ Latimer—‘‘ The more pity sir.” 

‘ Weston.‘ How long have you been of this opinion ?” 

‘ Latimer.— It is not long, sir, that I have been of this 
opinion.” 

‘ Weston.—“ The time hath been when you said mass full 
devoutly.” 

‘ Latimer.—" Yea, 1 cry God mercy heartily for it.” 

‘ Weston.—" Where learned you this newfangledness ?” 

‘ Latimer —1 have long sought for the truth in this 
matter of the sacrament, and have not been of this mind 
past seven years ; and my lord of Canterbury’s book” 
[Cranmer’s answer to Gardiner] “hath especially con- 
firmed my judgment herein. If I could remember all 
therein contained, I would not fear to answer any man in 
this matter.” 

‘Tresham.—" There are in that book six hundred 
errors.” 

‘ Weston.—" You were once a Lutheran.” 

‘ Latsmer.—‘ No. Iwas a Papist; I never could per- 
ceive how Luther could defend his opinion without tran- 
substantiation. The Tigurines” [divines of Zurich] 
“ once did write a book against Luther, and I oft desired 
God that he might live so long to make them answer.” 

‘ Weston.“ Luther, in his book on the Private Mass, 
said that the devil reasoned with him, and persuaded him 
that the mass was not good; whereof it may appear that 
Luther said mass, and the devil dissuaded him from it.” 

‘Latimer—“ 1 do not take in hand here to defend 
Luther’s sayings or doings. If he were here, he would 
defend himself well enough, I trow. I told you before 
that I am not meet for disputations. I pray you read 
mine answer, wherein I have declared my faith.”’ 

Notwithstanding that Latimer thus again and again 


506 Latimer the Martyr 


declined to dispute, his opponents went on to involve him 
in abstruse discussions about the exact interpretation of 
the famous words of St. John’s Gospel, ‘Except ye eat the 
flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall have 
no life in you’; and, according to their custom, the 
alleged against him the mystical words of some of the 
Fathers. Latimer did not profess to explain all that the 
Fathers had written : ‘ If they had foreseen,’ he replied, in 
the words of Melanchthon, ‘that they should have been sO 
taken in this controversy, they would have written more 
plainly.’ It was in vain they cited against him Cyril, 
Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Augustine ; he was not to be 
moved from the impregnable position which he had taken 
up, to believe nothing on the nature of the presence of 
Christ in the communion, except what was plainly laid 
down in Scripture. q 

‘“ Augustine,’ he answered, “was a reasonable man; 
he requireth to be believed no farther than he bringeth 
Scripture for his proof, and agreeth with God’s Word: 
the doctors might be deceived in some points, though 
not in all things. I believe them when they say well.” 

‘Cole.-—‘‘Is it not a shame for an old man to lie? You 
say you are of the old Fathers’ faith when they say well, 
and yet ye are not.’ 

‘ Latimer.—“ 1 am of their faith when they say well. 
I refer myself to my lord of Canterbury’s book wholly 
herein.” : 

‘ Smith.—* Then are you not of Chrysostom’s faith, nor 
of St. Augustine’s faith.” 

‘ Latimer.—‘I have said, when they say well, and bring 
Scripture for them, I am of their faith ; and further 
Augustine Pere not to be believed.” ’ 

Seeing they could make no impression on a disputan 
who entrenched himself behind such an impregnable 
position, they terminated the argument by an appeal to- 
Latimer’s fears, : 


¥ 


Nearing the End 507 


‘ Weston.—" Your stubbornness cometh of a vainglory, 
which is to no purpose ; for it will do you no good when 
a fagot is in your beard. And we see all by your own 
confession how little cause you have to be stubborn, for 
your learning is in feoffer’s hold” [i.e it was all in 
Cranmer’s book]. ‘The Queen’s grace is merciful, if ye 
will turn.” 

‘ Latimer.—“ You shall have no hope in me to turn. I 
pray for the Queen daily, even from the bottom of my 
heart, that she may turn from this religion.” ’ 

‘ Weston.—‘ Here you all see the weakness of heresy 
against the truth: he denieth all truth and all the old 
Fathers.”’ 

With this flourish of trumpets on the part of Weston, 
Latimer’s disputation closed, having lasted from eight till 
nearly eleven o’clock. The audience had treated Latimer 
as they had treated Ridley, who complains that he ‘ could 
never have thought it possible to find within England 
any persons of knowledge and learning so brazen-faced 
and so shameless.’* They railed, and raged, and 
laughed, and hissed ; and poor Latimer, who was faint, 
and so infirm that he ‘durst not drink for fear of 
vomiting,’ would leave the divinity-schools sick at heart 
from the melancholy spectacle which he had witnessed. 

On the Friday following this disputation, the Commis- 
sioners sat again in state in St. Mary’s Church, and the 
three bishops were brought before them. The prolocutor 
addressed them on the dangers to which they exposed 
themselves by adhering to what he called their vain 
heretical opinions, and entreated them to submit to the 
teaching of the Church. They were not allowed to make 
any reply to his address beyond simply stating whether or 
not they were willing to subscribe to the Articles which 
had been proposed. Latimer and the others replied that 
they were resolved to abide by what they had said in 


* Ridley’s account of the disputation at Oxford. 


508 Latimer the Martyr 


their disputations. Sentence was then formally pro- 
nounced upon them: they were declared to be m 
members of the Church, and were condemned as 
heretics. While the sentence was being read, they were 
once again asked whether they would turn or not; but 
they bade the prolocutor read on, in the name of God, 
for they were resolved not to abandon their faith. After 
the sentence had been pronounced, Latimer added, ‘I 
thank God most heartily that He hath prolonged my lif 
to this end, that I may in this case glorify God by that ki 
of death’ ; to which the prolocutor replied, ‘If you go to. 
heaven in this faith, then J will never come hither, as I am 
thus persuaded.’ 

The proceedings of the disputation were terminated the 
next day, April 21, with another mass and a grand pro- 
cession. Cranmer was compelled to look at the procession 
from his prison, Ridley from his place of confinement, and 
Latimer from the bailiff’s house. Latimer, indeed, imagined 
that the hour of his martyrdom was come whe he wz 
thus summoned to witness the procession in honour of those 
doctrines which he had so earnestly opposed ; and when 
he knew the real state of the case, he turned away, and 
would not even pollute his eyes with the sight.t 

Weston returned to London on the Monday following, 
and on the Friday the Commissioners appeared in convo- 
cation, and presented their report of their proceedings in: 
the examination of Latimer and his companions.2 The 
punishment of heresy was, of course, death at the stake; 
but to have carried the sentence into execution at that time” 
would have been to recognise, in part, the legislation of 
Henry VIII. ; it was resolved therefore to delay until the 
judges and the Council should fully consider the matter. 
On May 3, the Council ordered ‘that the Mayor of Oxford 
should bring in his bill of allowance for the charges of 
Doctor Cranmer, Doctor Ridley, and Mr. Latimer, and 


* Foxe, vol. vi. p.534. ® Wilkins’ Concilia, vol. iv. p. 94. 


A Sufficient Cause 509 


should have a warrant for the same; and further it was 
resolved by their lordships that the judges and the Queen’s 
Highness’s Counsel learned should be called together, and 
their opinions demanded what they think in law her high- 
ness may do touching the causes of the said Cranmer, 
Ridley, and Latimer.’ As the result of the deliberations 
of this learned assemblage of lawyers, the martyrdom of 
the three condemned heretics was deferred till further 
arrangements with the Papal See were completed ; and 
thus another season of rest and calm preparation was 
granted them ; for nearly eighteen months elapsed before 
Latimer and Ridley were martyred. 

We are so accustomed to speak of Latimer as a martyr 
who bravely perished at the stake, that we almost forget 
that he was a man, and that to him, as to ordinary mortals, 
life was sweet, and death, especially the painful death of 
the martyr, bitter and dreadful. It was for no vainglorious 
love of fame that he cast away his life: that emotion may 
sustain the warrior in the tumult of the battle-field, but it 
will seldom brave the horrors of the stake. Latimer had 
repeatedly protested that a man should not sacrifice his life 
except for a worthy cause; and he had enjoyed abundance 
of leisure for calmly weighing the merits of the present 
cause, and deciding upon the line of conduct which it was 
his duty tofollow. And he was right in deciding that here, 
on this question of the real presence in the sacrament, was, 


if anywhere in the controversy between the two Churches, ” 


the proper ground for resistance even at the risk of life. 
For this doctrine was the true heart and citadel of the 
whole Romish system ; all the other abuses of the Church 
of Rome, the pretensions of the priesthood, the claims of 
infallibility, the elevation of tradition and the Church above 
Scripture—these were mere outposts, which would, in the 
course of time, fall of themselves if this sacramental citadel 
were once stormed. Although, therefore, he was unable 


* Council Book. Harleian MSS., 643. 


f 


510 Latimer the Martyr 


to explain all that the early Fathers had written, in some: 
what flowery style, on the subject ; although he felt that 
even in Scripture there were words which ingenious 
logicians might deduce strange perplexing subtilties ; 
although he himself used language which has been thro 
ignorance or dishonesty represented as equivalent to the 
teaching of the Romish Church; Latimer knew that on 
this point the difference between his belief and theirs was: 
absolute and irreconcilable, and that it was not a mere 
metaphysical subtilty, but a grand comprehensive truth, 
involving in more or less direct consequence all the impor- 
tant differences that divided the Church of Rome from 
Church of the Reformation. 
The three martyrs, men of consummate learning and 
acuteness, who had long passed the age of heedless 
enthusiasm, were not in the least likely to throw awa 
their lives (as some modern divines seem so wildly te 
imagine) for a mere impalpable distinction without a 
difference. If it had been possible for them to subscribe 
the Articles with a good conscience, they would have 
submitted: they died as martyrs in protest against any 
attempt to force upon the Church of England that dogma 
of the real presence in the sacrament, which is the funda 
mental principle of the Church of Rome. 
Of Latimer’s occupation during the eighteen months 
that intervened between this first condemnation and his 
martyrdom, no detailed account can be given. He prob- 
ably spent most of his time in prayer, for he was too 
feeble in health to be able for the labours of corre- 
spondence. 
‘In prayer,’ says Foxe, following Bernher, ‘he wa 
fervently occupied, wherein oftentimes so long he con- 
tinued kneeling, that he was not able to rise without help ; 
and amongst other things, these were three principal 
matters he prayed for. First, that as God had appointed 
him to be a preacher of His Word, so also He would give 


Ridley’s Letters 511 


him grace to stand to his doctrine unto his death, that he 
might give his heart-blood for the same. Secondly, that 
God of His mercy would restore His Gospel to England 
once again ; and these words, “ once again,” “‘ once again,” 
he did so inculcate and beat into the ears of the Lord 
God, as though he had seen God before him, and spoken 
to Him-face to face. The third principal matter where- 
with in his prayers he was occupied, was to pray for the 
preservation of the Queen’s Majesty that now is’ [Queen 
Elizabeth], ‘whom in his prayer accustomably he was 
wont to name, and even with tears desired God to make 
her a comfort to this comfortless realm of England. 
These were the matters he prayed for so earnestly ; but 
were these things desired in vain? Did God despise the 
prayers of this His faithful soldier? No, assuredly ; for 
the Lord did most graciously grant all these requests.’ 

In Latimer’s silence we must be content to glean a few 
scanty but interesting pieces of information from some of 
the letters of Ridley, who, as the youngest of the three, 
was naturally more diligent in maintaining correspondence, 
when possible, with the world outside the prison walls. 
The glimpses which Ridley gives us into Latimez’s prison 
life at Oxford are few and at long intervals, for indeed 
Ridley’s letters were written surreptitiously, and many of 
them were, in all probability, intercepted ; still they are 
real, and therefore of more value than any modern 
conjectures. We shall allow Ridley to speak for himself, 
merely endeavouring, as far as possible, to arrange the 
extracts from his letters in exact chronological sequence. 

The first extract may be referred to the beginning of 
April, 1554 ; it describes their arrival at Oxford, and their 
treatment previous to their examination before the Com- 
missioners.* 

* Ridley’s Works (Parker Society), p. 359. It is to be regretted that 
no effort whatever has been made by the editor to assign the letters to 
any date, or to arrange them in any order. The letters, in fact, are 


not edited ; they are merely (as Carlyle says) tilted up like rubbish 
from a cart. 


512 Latimer the Martyr — 


‘We are in good health, thanks be to God, and yet the 
manner of our treatment doth change as sour ale doth i 
summer. It is reported to us of our keepers’ [they were 
then in the Bocardo, the common prison of Oxford], ‘ 


and burnt a hole in the floor, and no more harm was done, 
the bailiff’s servants sitting by the fire. Another night 
there chanced a drunken fellow to multiply words, and 
for the same he was set in Bocardo. Upon these things, 
as is reported, there is risen a rumour in the town and 
country about, that we would have broken the prison with 
such violence as, if the bailiffs had not played the pretty 
men, we should have made an escape. We had out of 
our prison a wall that we might have walked upon’ [wer 
allowed to do so] ; ‘and our servants’ [Latimer’s faithf ul 
Austin was still with him] ‘had liberty to go abroad in 
the town or fields ; but now both they and we are restrained 
of both. The Bishop of Worcester’ [Heath, restored 
vice Hooper deposed] ‘ passed by us through Oxford, bu 
he did not visit us. The same day began our restraint to 
be more, and the book of the Communion’ [Prayer-Book] 
‘was taken from us by the bailiffs at the mayor’s com- 
mandment. No man is licensed to come unto us. Afore, 
they that would, might see us upon the wall ; but this is 
so grudged at, and so evil reported, that a are now 
restrained. 

‘Sir’ [he is writing to Bradford], ‘blessed be God, 
with all our evil reports, grudgings, and restraints, we are” 
merry in God ; and all our care is, and shall be, by God’ 
grace, to please and serve Him, of whom we look and 
hope, after this temporal and momentary misery, to have” 
eternal joy and perpetual felicity with Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, Peter and Paul, and all the blessed company of the 
angels in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. As yet 
there is never learned man or any scholar or other, that 


Ministering Women 513 


visited us since we came into Bocardo, which now in 
Oxford may be called a college of quondams’ [persons 
deposed from office]; ‘for, as you know, we be no 
fewer here than three, and I dare say, every one well 
contented with his position, which I do reckon to 
be our heavenly Father’s gracious and fatherly good 
gift. 

“We all pray you, as you can, to cause all our com- 
mendations to be made to all such as you know did visit 
us and you when we were in the Tower, with their kindly 
remembrances and benefits. Mistress Wilkinson and 
Mistress Warcup have not forgotten us, but ever since 
we came into Bocardo, with their charitable and friendly 
benevolence have comforted us; not that else we lack 
(for God be blessed, which ever hitherto hath provided 
sufficiently for us), but it isa great comfort and an occa- 
sion for us to bless God, when we see that He maketh 
them so friendly to tender us, whom some of us were 
never familiarly acquainted withal.’ 

One reads with pleasure of the kindly sympathy which 
prompted these pious ladies, at no small risk to themselves, 
to contribute to the support of the illustrious prisoners. 
Almost the only letter which Latimer wrote at this time 
was a brief letter of grateful thanks to Mistress Wilkinson 
for her kindness to him. This good lady was a widow, 
who resided usually at Soper Lane, in London, but was 
at this time living at the manor of English, in Oxford- 
shire.* 

‘If the gift of a pot of water shall not be in oblivion 
with God, how can God forget your manifold and boun- 
tiful gifts, when He shall say unto you, “I was in prison 
and you visited Me”? God grant us all to do and suffer 
while we be here as may be His will and pleasure. Amen. 
Yours in Bocardo, Hugh Latimer.’ 

Till the commencement of the disputation, the three 

* Bradford writes to her, and also to Mistress Ann Warcup, 


33 


514 Latimer the Martyr 


his letter to Grindal, in 1555. 

‘ About Whitsuntide last year’ [rather earlier] ‘ 
our disputation at Oxford; after the which was al 
taken from us, as pen and ink, etc.; our own servants 
were taken from us before, and every one had put to 
him a strange man; and we each one appointed to be 
kept in several’ Separate | ‘places, as we are unto this 
day.’ ! 

These rigorous ‘proceedings were not in reality pro- 
ductive of so much inconvenience as was intended ; for 
the servants, appointed probably as spies upon them, soon 
learned to sympathise with the prisoners, and not only 
connived at their maintenance of intercourse with each 
other, but actually assisted them in what must have be en 
to them all a source of deepest consolation. ‘My man, 
says Ridley, in a letter to Cranmer, ‘is trusty; but 
grieveth both him and me, that when I send him with 
anything to you, your man will not let him come up 


overwhelmed with grief at being separated from his 
master. He, indeed, seems to have himself fallen under 
the suspicion of the authorities ; and he was utterly ata 
loss to know whether he should remain still at Oxford, in 
the hope of again being permitted to join his master, o 
should consult for his own safety by flight. He asked the 
advice of Latimer’s friends, the Glovers; and Robert 
Glover, in a long and somewhat hesitating letter, recom- 
mended him to remain at Oxford, and trust in the mercy 
and goodness of God to order all ching aright. Glover's 


* The date is ascertained as June 1, 1555, by the reference to 
maker’s martyrdom as having occurred the previous day. 


Many Sympathisers 515 


letter* also speaks of the kindness of friends who con- 
sidered it an honour to provide for the wants of 
the faithful prisoners at Oxford. Besides sending 
Bernher ‘two shirts for himself, and two for his master,’ 
he sent by the same bearer ‘six pounds, thirteen shillings, 
and fourpence, left by an honest gentleman to provide 
such things as your master and his two fellow-prisoners 
do lack.’ 

All over England the deepest sympathy was felt for men 
who so nobly sacrificed themselves for conscience’ sake ; 
and from all sides proofs of these feelings came with 
grateful frequency to Oxford. 

‘With us,’ writes Ridley again, ‘all things are here 
common ; meat, money, and whatsoever one of us hath, 
that can or may do another good. Although the bailiffs 
and our hosts straitly watch us, that we have no con- 
ference or intelligence of anything abroad, yet hath God 
provided for every one of us, in the stead of our servants, 


faithful fellows which will be content to hear, and see, and 


to do for us whatsoever they can. . . . As far as London 
is from Oxford, yet thence we have received of late. both 
meat, money, and shirts ; not only from such as are of our 
acquaintance, but of some with whom I had never to my 
knowledge any acquaintance. I know for whose sake 
they do it; to Him, therefore, be all honour, glory, and 
due thanks. And yet, I pray you, do so much as to show 
them that we have received their benevolence, and (God 
be blessed) have plenty of all such things. Mr. Latimer was 
crazed, but I hear now, thanks be to God, that he 
amendeth again.’ ? 

The calamity here referred to as having happened to 


* British Museum : Additional MSS., 19400, No. 38; never printed. 

2 Ridley’s Letters, vol. xiii, to Bradford: the date is fixed to April, 
1554, from the fact that itis a reply toa letter from Bradford, asking 
advice about answering ina public disputation ; Ridley recommends 
not to answer ; and May 1, 1554, Bradford and others issued a protest 
against any public disputation. 


516 Latimer the Martyr 


Latimer was, it may be believed, not in reality so dreadful 
as it appears to a modern reader: to be crazed, in the 
language of Ridley’s day, meant to be seriously ill in 
health, utterly shaltered and broken down, as the derivation 
of the word implies, and did not of necessity involve an 
mental derangement ; though after the worry and excite- 
ment of the past weeks in which, as Latimer too well knew, 
he had taken up a position that would cost him his life, it 
would not be surprising that both mind and body, for aL 
time, should have given way. 

It must not be inferred from the allusions made in these 
letters to the benevolence of Christian ladies, that no pro- 
vision whatever was made for the necessary wants of the 
three prisoners, and that they were entirely dependent 
upon the sympathy. of charitable admirers. On the 
contrary, they ‘had food and clothing at the royal charge,’ 
as Ridley subsequently informed Bradford (victum eb 
amictum epenario regio). 'The Council took the matter into 
their consideration, and they resolved ‘that the Mayor and 
bailiffs of Oxford should have for the charges due unto 
them for Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and their servants, 
three pounds every week,’ and they authorized the treasurer ' 
to pay at that rate for so much as was due.*_ This, con- 
sidering the value of money, was a handsome allowance 
for their support ; but, unfortunately for the credit of 
Mary’s government, the mayor and bailiffs were never 
repaid their outlay. They presented a bill of sixty-three 
pounds for their expenditure, but only twenty pounds of 
this sum was paid to them; and eleven years later they 
had to petition Archbishop eae to contribute towards: 
defraying the expense of supporting his predecessor it 
Bocardo. A curious record is preserved of their diet in 
Oxford, specifying every article supplied to them for 
dinner and supper, with its exact cost; one of the 
most singular specimens of a diary in existence . 

* Council Book: Harleian MSS. 


Prison Life 517 


following is, for example, the ‘bill for the dinner of 
October 1’ :— 


Breda ang ale.) cc. 0 sus cass Cave (nce) ons) lace ii d. 
MOI OYSLETS + (250) j.dell eae: | cate. ieee), onacl tl nee id. 
MGR PPEIEL acy live" sacs fase, cas) evs’ “ans\) fees ii d. 
Item, DS aseha sacl eiemeta arent nce neseg nell poms ii d. 
Item, lyng .. ue calls Seo swan 
Item, a piece of fresh ‘salmon Rene Bae Sch ede xd. 
Mane! Be eee eect aver ties 4 ene eP Ge 
Cheese and pears Mae Miccctle! soot Nace, sweat Yire ii d. 


TOtAL *cesuyiecei! casts fametl SeUvinds 


They had suppers as well as dinners : but in both cases 
the same quantity of wine was supplied, and both meals 
invariably terminated with cheese and pears. It may 
interest those to whom such details seem of value to know 
that it was a year of great scarcity, and that the prices 
given above were esteemed extraordinarily dear. Strype 
believes that they were occasionally allowed to dine 
together in Bocardo, of course under strict surveillance to 
prevent them conversing with each other ; but this seems 
highly improbable, when such precaution had been taken 
to keep them always apart. 

The resolution of the authorities to prevent them holding 
any intercourse with each other, or learning the condition 
of affairs in England, had, as we have seen, been defeated 
by the attachment of the servants who waited on the 
venerable fathers. Their noble constancy had raised them 
higher than ever in the esteem of all who were in any way 
attached to the Reformation ; it was, in fact, the source of 
the renewed life of the Reformation in England. Had 
Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer yielded, or faltered in their 
courage; had they abandoned their posts, and sought 
safety in flight, as their friends had entreated them to do, 
and as so many of the noisy ‘gospellers’ who used to 
upbraid them with cowardice had already done; in all 
probability the cause of the Reformation in England would 

1 Strype’s Cranmer, vol. i. p. 562. 


518 Latimer the Martyr 


have been desperate. But their inflexible courage had 
inspired new energy into every Reformer; and from all 
quarters there came, by trusty messengers, letters of 


Oxford.’ 
Thus also the three bishops were again reinstated i 


Reformers. They were consulted about every matter o 
consequence. Bradford and Hooper and their fellow- 
prisoners, for example, asked their advice as to whether 


as that at Oxford had been, or should refrain.* Ridley’s 
answer is preserved ; he alone probably wrote a reply, but 
the question was carefully submitted to them all. A 
troublesome party also had sprung up amongst the 
Reformers, teaching doctrines on the subject of free will, 
which were deemed heretical and dangerous ; and again 
the three prelates were anxiously entreated to advise what 
was most fitting to be done. So that though deprived of 
outward rank and all the pomp of hierarchical pre-eminence, 
they were still as much as ever, more indeed than they had 
been during the closing years of Edward’s reign, the 
leaders of the English Reformation, to whom their 
followers looked up for guidance, and for a noble example 
of Christian constancy. Through thousands of English 
hearts there passed the same sentiments that Rowland 
Taylor, also a prisoner for Christ’s sake, expressed so well 
in a letter sent to Oxford, shortly after the disputation. _ 

‘England hath had but a few learned bishops that would 
stick to Christ even unto the fire. ... I cannot utter 
with pen how I rejoice in my heart for you three such 
captains in the forward, under Christ’s cross, banner, or 
standard, in such a cause and skirmish ; when not only one or 
two of our dear Redeemer’s strongholds are besieged, but 


t See the letter in Foxe, vol. vi. 


A Case of Conscience 519 


all His chief castles, ordained for our safeguard, are 
traitorously impugned. This your enterprise, in the sight 
of all that be in heaven, and of all God’s people in earth, 
is most pleasant to behold. This is another manner of 
nobility, than to be in the forefront in worldly warfares.’* 

Of course in such times of danger there were many who 
loved the cause of the Reformation, and who had remained 
steadfast even to imprisonment, but who shrank from the 
fiery ordeal to which it now seemed probable they might 
be submitted, and who began to doubt whether, without 
sin, they might not purchase for themselves deliverance 
and freedom, by some sacrifice of their faith or a liberal 
use of their money. One of these prisoners wrote to 
consult Latimer on this case of conscience ; and the reply 
of the venerable Reformer was, as might have been 
anticipated, that Christ must be held dearer even than life 
itself. Latimer’s answer, written from his Oxford prison, 
reflects the character of his prison studies: it contains no 
quotations from the Fathers, but abundant references to 
that great source of his strength which he so deliberately 
perused—the New Testament. A few sentences will 
convince the reader that the good old prelate had quite 
recovered the full use of his intellect, if ever he had been 
‘ crazed,’ in the modern sense of that term. 

‘Christ said that “ Foxes have their holes and the birds 
of the air have their nests, but the Son of man had not 
where to lay His head.” The wise men of this world can 
find shifts to avoid the cross ; and the unstable in faith can 
set themselves to rest with the world; but the simple 
servant of Christ doth look for no other but oppression in 
the world. And then is it their most glory, when they be 
under the cross of their master, Christ, which He did bear, 
not only for our redemption, but also for an example to us, 
that we should follow His steps in suffering, that we might 
be partakers of His glorious resurrection. I do therefore 


* Strype’s Cranmer, p. 486. 


520 Latimer the Martyr ' 


allow highly your judgment in this behalf, who think it not 
lawful for money to redeem yourself out of the cross ; 
unless you would go about to exchange glory for shame, 
and to sell your inheritance for a mess of pottage, as Esau 
did, who afterwards found it no more.’ " 
After fortifying this position by many citations from the 
New Testament, he proceeds :— a 
‘But, perchance the worldly-wise man, or carnal 
gospeller, will confess, and object this to be true, and that 
he intendeth not to deny the truth, although he buy 
himself out of the yoke of the cross; minding hereafter, 
if he be driven thereto, to die therein. But to him I~ 
answer, with Solomon, ‘‘ Defer not to do well till to-mor- | 
row, but do it out of hand, if thou have liberty.” So I ; 
say, that little we know whether God will give us such 
grace, as He doth now offer us, at another time, viz., to 
suffer for His sake; and it is noi in us to choose it whed : 
we will. Therefore let us offer the counsel of St. Paul, 
“serve the time” (which we are in) of affliction, and be ~ 
glad to be afflicted with the people of God, which is the © 
recognisance of the children of God; se rather to 
“redeem the time,” with our death for the testimony of 
the truth, to the which we are born, than to purchase a 
miserable life for the concupiscence of the world, and to — 
the great danger of falling from God. We are now more — 
near to God than ever we were, yea, we are at the gate of © 
heaven ; and we are a joyful spectacle become, in this our — 
captivity, to God, to the angels, and to all His saints, who 
look that we should end our course with glory. We have 
found the precious stone of the Gospel, for the which we — 
ought to sell all that we have in the world. And shall we 
exchange, or lay to gage the precious treasure which we 
have in our hands for a few days to lament in the world, 
contrary to our vocation? God forbid it! But let us, as 
Christ willeth us in St. Luke, “look up, and lift up our 
heads, for our redemption is at hand.” 


Waiting in Prison 521 


‘A man that hath long travelled, and hath his journey’s 
end before him, what madness were it for him to set 
further compass about, and put himself in more trouble 
and labour than needeth! If we live by hope, let us 
desire the end and fruition of our hope. 

‘If any man perceive his faith not to abide the fire, let 
such an one with weeping buy his liberty, until he hath 
obtained more strength ; lest the Gospel by him sustain 
an offence of some shameful recantation. Let the dead 
bury the dead. Let us that be of the lively faith follow 
the Lamb wheresoever He goeth.’ 

Such words of steadfast faith must have inspired with 
fresh courage all who heard them, Well might Ridley, 
writing from his prison, say, ‘I do think the Lord hath 
placed old father Latimer to be His standard-bearer in 


- our age and country against His mortal foe, antichrist.” ' 


One only regrets that Latimer was unable to impart a 
larger share of his faith and courage to his venerable 
fellow-prisoner Cranmer, who, by his weakness in the 
hour of danger, has left an unhappy stain on the close of 
a long and useful and honoured career. ; 

From the extracts now given, the reader will be able 
to collect no inadequate idea of the manner in which 
Latimer’s prison-life at Oxford flowed on. Favoured with 
abundance of leisure for prayer, for meditation, for the 
calm perusal of the New Testament ; not altogether cut 
off from intercourse with his fellow-prisoners ; receiving 
every day tokens of the kindly esteem of many admirers 
known and unknown ; honoured and consulted by all who 
loved the Reformation in England; Latimer may have 
looked upon his imprisonment as by no means the most 
unhappy period of his chequered life. The one fear 
which would have made his imprisonment intolerable, had 
been taken away ; his soul was stayed upon God, and he 
looked upon death, even the martyr’s death, without alarm. 


* Ridley’s Letter to Mrs. Glover. 


522 Latimer the Martyr a 


Meantime the progress of events under the rule of Mar 
was gradually maturing measures for commencing © 
active persecution which has rendered her name for eve! 
infamous. Cardinal Pole had at length arrived in 
England, and had solemnly absolved the nation from al 
their heresies, and assured them of the forgiveness of 
Papal See. This was done on November 30, 1554, 
Andrew’s Day, which, it was ordered, was to be observed 
for ever after as the Feast of Reconciliation. In the same 
fond exultation over their short-lived triumph, they had a 
grand procession on January 25, 1555, the feast of the 
Conversion of St. Paul, and in the evening ‘commar d- 
ment was give to make bonfires through all London, for 
joy of the people that were converted like as Saint Paul 
was converted.’: The authority of the Pope being now 
formally restored, Cardinal Pole granted a commission to 
the bishops to proceed in the trial of the heretics then in 
prison, and to judge them according to the rigour of the 
old penal laws which Parliament had revived ; and now 
the Protestants knew that their supreme hour of trial h ac 
come. Rogers led the way as the proto-martyr in this 
fierce persecution. Hooper soon followed ; and the eyes 
of Englishmen became familiar with the most dreadful of 
all sights, men of learning and piety dying a cruel death 
for the sake of their faith. . 

It was some months before any active steps were taken 
against Latimer and his fellow-prisoners at Oxford ; but, 
notwithstanding all precautions to keep them uninformed 
as to the position of public affairs, they knew well that the 
hour of which they had so often thought and prayed was 
at hand. What their emotions were at such a moment, 
Ridley has told us in one of his letters to Bradford. 

‘We all here be (thanks be to God) in good health and 
comfort, watching with our lamps alight (I trust in God) 
when it shall please our Master, the bridegroom, to call us 

* Greyfriars’ Chronicle. 


Gaol Rumours 523 


to wait upon Him unto the marriage. Now we suppose 
the day doth approach apace, for we hear that the Parlia- 
ment is dissolved’ [was dissolved January 16, 1555]. 
‘The burgesses of Oxford are come home, and other 
news we hear not, but that the King’ [Philip] ‘is made 
protector to the prince to be born’ [expected to be born, 
but never born] ; ‘and that the bishops have full authority, 
ex officio, to inquire of heresies. Before the Parliament 
began, it was a rumour here, that certain from the Con- 
vocation-house were appointed, yea, ready to have come 
to Oxford, and then there was spied out one thing to lack, 
for want of a law to perform their intent. Now, seeing 
they can want no law’ [Parliament having again called 
into force the old laws], ‘we cannot but look for them 
shortly. I trust to God’s glory, let them come when they 
will.’ 

Some kind friends, it would appear, had again sent the 
three prisoners clothes ; and Ridley thus beautifully alludes 
to this act of respect and charity :— 

‘I am sure you have heard of our new apparel, and I 
doubt not but London will have their talk of it. Sir, 
know you that although this seemeth to us in our case 
much thanks-worthy, yet have we not that apparel that we 
look for, for this in time will wear ; but that which we 
look for, rightly done’ [put] ‘on, will endure, and is 
called stola immortalitalis, the robe of immortality.’ 7 

When the persecution had actually begun, the most 
strange and exaggerated rumours were conveyed to 
Oxford of what had occurred, and what was contemplated 
in their own case. Ridley was told by his hostess that 
Hooper had been hanged, drawn, and quartered, for 
treason. On another occasion it was rumoured that all 
the three Oxford prisoners were to be ‘shortly and 
suddenly conveyed into three several colleges, for what 
purpose, and how to be ordered, no one could tell” As 


t Ridley’s Letters, p. 371. 


524 Latimer the Martyr a 


they at length received unquestionable information of #1 
progress of the persecution, and learned the stead! 
faith and courage which had kept Rogers unflinching 
the stake, they looked on their own death as near, 2 
were comforted by the recollection of his constancy. — 
‘We look now every day,’ says Ridley, whom we n 

consider the interpreter of the others, ‘when we shall be 
called on, blessed be God! I ween, I am the weakest 
many ways, of our company ; and yet I thank our Lord 


heaviness in my heart, as I grant I have felt sometimes 
before.’ * 7 


of Latimer’s faithful servant Bernher, who, in accordance 
with Glover’s ae and in spite of all the strict watch 


faithful and devoted admirers. He was, in fact, the only 
medium of intercourse now left between them and the 


prevent their prison life at Oxford being an entire bla 
in history. Ridley regarded this humble, faithful Sw 


® Ridley’s Lelters, p. 378. 2 Ibid., p. 379. 


< 
& 
“a 


A Farewell 525 


‘as appointed by God to do much pleasure for His 
prest’ [zealous] ‘servants to His wars’; and the reader 
of English history, and the admirer of English worth, 
will not grudge a tribute of grateful respect to one whose 
devotion has preserved for us documents of no slight 
historical value. 

In the month of May * Latimer wrote an epistle ‘to all 
the unfeigned lovers of God’s truth.’ It was his last 
address to the people of England, whom he had so often 
instructed, and is full of comfort and earnest warning. 
None of the farewell letters of the martyrs better deserves 
a careful perusal : only a few specimens of his character, 
however, can here be given. 

‘Brethren, the time is come when the Lord’s ground 
will be known; I mean, it will now appear who hath 
received God’s Word in their hearts indeed, to the taking 
of good root therein. For such will not shrink for a little 
heat or sun-burning weather; but stoutly stand and grow, 
even maugre the malice of all burning showers and 
tempests. For he that hath played the wise builder, and 
laid his foundation on a rock, will not be afraid that every 
drizzling rain or mist shall hurt his buildings, but will 
stand, although a great tempest do come, and drops of 
rain as big as fir-fagots. But they that have builded upon 
a sand will be afraid, though they see but a cloud arise a 
little black, and no rain or wind doth once touch them ; 
no, not so much as to lie one week in prison, to trust God 
with their lives which gave them. For they have forgot 
what St. Paul saith: “If we die we are the Lord’s: and 
if we live we are the Lord’s: so that whether we live or 
die we are the Lord’s.” Yet they will not put Him in 


trust with His own. 


* So says Strype, founding upon a marginal note in a MS., in 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, which states that the letter was 
written ‘from Bocardo, the 15th day of May, 1555.’ The date may be 
right, but the place is wrong, for it is certain from Ridley’s letter to 
Grindal, that Latimer was not in Bocardo in May, 1555. 


526 Latimer the Martyr 


‘And forasmuch, my dearly beloved brethren and 
sisters in the Lord, as I am persuaded of you that you be 
in the number of the wise builders, which have made 
their foundations sure by faith upon the infallible words 
of God’s truth, and will now bring forth the fruits to 
God’s glory after your vocation, as occasion shall be 
offered, although the sun burn never so hot, nor 


weather be never so foul ; wherefore I cannot but signi 


stormy weather which you are come unto, or are like te 
come : of this being most certain, that the end of your 
sorrow shall be pleasant and joyful, in-such a perpetual 
rest and blissfulness as cannot but swallow up the storms 
which you now feel, and are like to feel, at the hands 
of those sacrificing prelates. ... Set before you that 
though the weather be stormy and foul, yet you go not 
alone ; many other of your brethren and sisters pass by 
the same path, as St. Peter telleth us; that company 


you, stick not to go still forward. I pray you, tell me, if 
from the beginning any, yea the best of God’s friends, 
have found any fairer way or weather to the place whither 
we are going (I mean to heaven) than we now find and 
are like to find. . . . Read from the first of Genesis to the 


many tribulations. . . . Wherefore, my dear beloved, be 
not so dainty to look to have at the Lord’s hands, your 
dear ea that which the patriarchs, prophets, an 


A Note of Triumph 527 


who knew and believed ‘the mass to be an abominable 
idol, full of idolatry, blasphemy, sacrilege against God 
and the dear sacrifice of His Christ,’ would incur if they 
sanctioned by their presence this ‘pernicious blasphemy 
against the death of their Redeemer’; and faithfully 
exposing the dishonest practice of going to mass, but at 
the same time sitting in their pews instead of kneeling at 
the elevation, as if they could thereby serve two masters, 
he thus concludes his farewell letter :-— 


‘Pray for me your poor brother and fellow-sufferer for 
God’s sake ; His name therefore be praised. And let us 
pray to God that He of His mercy will vouchsafe to make 
both you and me meet to suffer with good consciences 
for His name’s sake. Die once we must ; how and where 
we know not. Happy are they whom God giveth to pay 
nature’s debt (I mean to die) for His sake. Here is not 
our home; let us therefore accordingly consider things 
having always before our eyes that heavenly Jerusalem, 
and the way thereunto in persecution. And let us con- 
sider all the dear friends of God, how have they gone 
after the example of our Saviour Jesus Christ ; whose 
footsteps let us also follow, even to the gallows (if God’s 
will be so), not doubting but as He rose again the third 
day, even so shall we do at the time appointed of God, 
that is, when the trump shall blow, and the angel shall 
shout, and the Son of man shall appear in the clouds, with 
innumerable saints and angels, in His majesty and great 
glory, and the dead shall arise, and we shall be caught up 
into the clouds, to meet the Lord, and to be always with 
Him. Comfort yourselves with these words, and pray for 
me for the Lord’s sake ; and God be merciful unto us all. 
Amen. 

Huey LY’ 


These were not the mere conventional common-places 
of religious consolation, uttered, as they often are, without 


528 Latimer the Martyr 


+ eo eae 


any earnest belief in them, by men who are at their ease 
they were the truths in which Latimer reposed 
strength to face every danger, from which he deri 
peace and comfort, even with the prospect of the s 
now drawing near. : 

In June a new honour was conferred upon Latimer 
his books, along with those of Cranmer, Luther, Tind 
and others, were condemned by royal proclamation, as 
containing ‘false doctrine contrary to the catholic faith 


teachers, if their works were freely circulated throu h- 
out the country. The bishops were constantly opposec 
with citations from ‘ Latimer’s books,’ Cranmer’s, Ridley’s 


before in the case of the English Bible, to extirpate the 
hated works by the strong hand of royal authority. . 

It has never been satisfactorily explained why the 
Government of Mary allowed so long an interval to 


indeed, after the famous disputation of April, 1554, t 
execution would have been irregular and illegal; 
even after Parliament had armed the bishops with plenary 
authority, and the Papal See had given its full sanction t 
the punishment of heretics, seven months were allowec 
to pass before any steps were taken to enforce th 
sentence against them. Perhaps there was some divisic 
of opinion among the chief authorities of the St 
perhaps it was felt to be necessary to advance 1 
caution against victims so distinguished and so hi 
esteemed ; perhaps it was hoped that by longi impri 
ment their spirits might be depressed and they migh 
induced to recant (and Bonner always declared in 


Before the Commissioners 529 


course, vulgar way, that Cranmer was sure to recant). 


Whatever may have occasioned the delay, it was at 


length determined, in the month of September, to pro- 


ceed to the conclusion of their case. 

On September 28, Cardinal Pole sent to Oxford three 
Commissioners, White, Bishop of Lincoln, Brooks, Bishop 
of Gloucester, and Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, with 
full power to summon before them Hugh Latimer and 
Nicholas Ridley, ‘pretensed Bishops of Worcester and 
London,’ and to examine them on sundry heresies which 
they had maintained in the disputation of the previous 
year, as well as during (what the Cardinal was pleased to 
call) ‘the times of perdition,’ that is, the period during 
which the Reformation had been established in England. 
The Commissioners were empowered to receive the two 
heretics into the ‘reconciliation of the Holy Father,’ if 
they should prove penitent and yield to the determination 
of the Catholic Church ; but if they proved obstinate and 
adhered to their opinions, they were to be condemned, 
excommunicated, degraded, and handed over to the 
secular power for due punishment. 

The Articles offered to them, to be received or rejected 
at the risk of their lives, were the same as those of the 
previous disputation ; and the two bishops were examined 
separately. Ridley was first placed at the bar, and during 
his trial Latimer was kept waiting outside. Ridley’s trial 


over, Latimer was summoned before the Commissioners. 


Tradition has preserved, in the pages of Foxe, a sort of 
Dutch picture or photograph of the aged Reformer’s 
appearance as he presented himself before his judges. 


‘He held his hat in his hand, he had a kerchief on his ~ 
head, and upon it a night-cap or two, and a great cap, 
such as townsmen use, with two broad flaps to button 
_ under the chin’ [not the square cap which was so hateful 


to Foxe’s eyes] ; ‘he wore an old threadbare frieze gown 


_ girded to his body with a penny leather girdle, at the 


34 


A. 
eT 


530 Latimer the Marty: 


which hanged by a long string of leather his Testament 
and his spectacles, without case, depended about 
neck upon his breast.’ Clearly this was not one of th 
who wore soft clothing, but an unkempt prophet like Johi 
the Baptist or Elias. 
The Bishop of Lincoln, who acted as chief of 
commission, addressed Latimer, urging him to return 
‘like a strayed sheep to the unity of Christ’s Church, 
from which he had fallen in the time of schism. ‘It 
is to no new place,’ he continued, ‘I exhort you to return 
but to return thither from whence you went. Consi 
Master Latimer, that without the unity of the Church is 
salvation, and in the Church can be no errors. There 
what should stay you to confess that which all the re 
confesseth, to forsake that which the King and QO 
their majesties have renounced, and all the realm re- 
canted.’ After briefly alluding to the usual Romish 
argument for the supremacy of the Papal See, founded 
upon our Lord’s words to St. Peter, ‘Feed My sheep, 
the Bishop went on to warn Latimer of the consequence 
of adhering to his opinions, and concluded with an appeal 
that would have overcome any one whose constancy was 
not founded on the truth. a 
‘Master Latimer, for God’s love consider your estate” 
[position] : ‘remember you are a learned man ; you 
taken degrees in the school, borne the office of a bisho 
remember you are an old man; spare your body; 
accelerate not your death; and specially remember 
your soul’s health, quiet of your conscience. Conside 
that if you should die in this state, you shall be a stin 
sacrifice to God; for it is the cause that maketh 
martyr, and not the death; consider, that if you di 
this state, you die without grace ; for without the Church 
can be no salvation. Let not vainglory have the uppe 
hand ; humiliate yourself ; captivate your understand 
subdue your reason ; submit yourself to the determina 


4 
J 
ne 


Lu 


Latimer’s Defence “531 


of the Church ; do not force us to do all that we may do; 
let us rest in that part which we most heartily desire, and 
I for my part again with all my heart exhort you.’ 

Having received permission to reply, Latimer, in a few 
words, refuted the argument that had been addressed to 
him. 

“Your lordship gently exhorted me in many words to 
come to the unity of the Church. I confess, my lord, 
a Catholic Church, spread through all the world, in the 
which no man may err, without the which unity of the 
Church no man can be saved ; but I know perfectly by 
God’s Word, that this Church is in all the world, and hath 
not his foundation in Rome only, as you say. And me- 
thought your lordship brought a place out of the Scrip- 
tures to confirm the same, that there was a jurisdiction 
given to Peter, in that Christ bade him regere, govern His 
people. Indeed, my lord, St. Peter did well and truly his 
office, in that he was bid regere ; but since, the bishops of 
Rome have taken a new kind of regere. Indeed they 
ought regere, but how, my lord? Not as they will them- 
selves, but this regere must be hedged in and ditched in. 
They must regere, but secundum verbum Dei, according to 
the Word of God. But the bishops of Rome have turned 
“ruling according to the Word of God” into “ruling 
according to their own pleasures.”’’ 

He proceeded to illustrate this by reference to a book 
published in the end of 1553, in which the writer, the 
Bishop of Gloucester, who was then present, arguing from 
the words of Deuteronomy, ‘If there ariseth any con- 
troversy among the people, the priests of the order of 
Levi shall decide the matter according to the law of 
God,’ had omitted entirely the important words ‘according 
to the law of God.’ His allusion excited a smile among 
the audience, for Latimer had added that, to his know- 
ledge, he had never seen the writer of the book, though 
the writer was one of the three Commissioners before 


532 Latimer the Martyr iy 


whom he was then speaking. This preliminary ar 
informal discussion over, the Articles were read alow 
and Latimer was requir ‘ed to admit or deny each 
briefly as possible. Latimer protested that the fact o} 
his answering should not be construed as a recognition 
of the Pope’s authority in England, and then plainly and 
concisely answered to his Articles. 
‘“ We object to thee, Hugh Latimer,” so ran the Arti e 
“first that thou, in this high university of Oxford, anno | 
1554, in the month of April, hast affirmed and openly 
defended and maintained that the true and natural body 
of Christ, after the consecration of the priest, is not really 
present in the sacrament of the altar. What say you unto 
this ? I pray you answer affirmatively or negatively.” _ 
-*“T do not deny, my lord,” Latimer replied, “that i 
the sacrament, by spirit and grace, is the very body and 
blood of Christ; because that every man, by receiving 
bodily that bread and wine, spiritually receiveth the body 
and blood of Christ, and is made partaker thereby of the 
merits of Christ’s passion. But I deny that the body and 
blood of Christ is in such sort in the sacrament as you 
would have it.” ’ 
This the Bishop directed the notary to record as an : 
affirmative answer, and proceeded to the second Article. — 
‘“Ttem, That thou hast publicly affirmed that in he 
sacrament of the altar remaineth still the substance of 
bread and wine. What say you to this Article? * 
‘ Latimer —“ There is, my lord, a change in the bread 
and wine, and such a change as no power but the omni- 
potency of God can make, in that that which before 
bread should now have the dignity to exhibit Chris 
body ; and yet the bread is still bread, and the wine stil 
wine. For the change is not in the nature, but in 
dignity ; because now that which was common bread ha 
the dignity to exhibit Christ’s body: for whereas it 


The Articles Answered 554. 


ought it to be so taken, but as holy bread sanctified by 


God’s Word.” 

‘ Lincoln.—‘ Well Master Latimer, is not this your 
answer, that the substance of bread and wine remaineth 
after the words of consecration ?” 

‘ Latimer.—" Yes, verily : it must needs be so, for Christ 
Himself calleth it bread; St. Paul calleth it bread ; the 
doctors confess the same ; the nature of a sacrament con- 
firmeth the same ; and I call it holy bread, not in that I 
make no difference betwixt your holy bread and this, but 
for the holy office which it beareth, that is, to be a figure 
of Christ’s body ; and not only a bare figure, but effect- 
ually to represent the same.”’ 

This was likewise entered as an affirmative answer, and 
the third Article was read. 

‘“Tiem. That you openly affirmed that in the mass 
is no propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the 
dead.” 

‘ Latimer.— No, no, my lord : Christ made one perfect 
sacrifice for all the whole world; neither can any man 
offer Him again, neither can the priest offer up Christ 
again for the sins of men, which He took away by offering 
Himself once for all, as St. Paul saith, upon the cross ; 
neither is there any propitiation for our sins, saving His 
cross only.’’’ 

This also was noted down as an affirmative answer. 
The fourth Article declared that these foregoing assertions 
of Latimer’s had been condemned as heretical by Dr. 
Weston and other learned men. To this Latimer at first 
made no reply, and the Bishop asked whether he had 
heard what was read or not. 

‘Latimer.—“ Yes, but I do not understand what you 
mean thereby.” 

» ‘Lincoln.— Marry, only this, that your assertions were 
condemned by Dr. Weston as heresies. Is it not so, 
Master Latimer ?” 


534 Latimer the Martyr 


‘ Latimer—* Yes, I think they are condemned ; but ; 
how unjustly, He that shall be judge of all knowe ” 4 


that ‘all the premises were true and openly known by 
public fame, as well to them near hand, as to them i 
distant places far off.’ To this Latimer could only reply 


roparted of him. 

The answers being thus explicitly given, the Commis- 
sioners might at once have proceeded to pronounce 
sentence ; but they intimated to Latimer that they would — 
grant him a respite till the next day, in the hope that after — 
he had seriously pondered everything, he might acknow- 
ledge his errorsand recant. Latimer entreated permission 
to explain his reasons for rejecting the a s authority, 
but it was declined. - 

‘“ To-morrow,” said Lincoln, “ you shall have licence. » 

‘“ Nay, my lords,” he rejoined, “T beseech you to do 
with me now as it shall please your lordships ; I pray you — 
let me not be troubled to-morrow again.” t 

‘Yes, Master Latimer,” faye Lincoln, “ you must 
needs appear again to-morrow.’ 

‘““Truly, my lord, as for my part I require no respi 7 
for Iam at a point o [my mind is made up]: “you shall 
give me respite in oa therefore I pray you let me not 
trouble you to-morrow.’ ‘4 

“Yes,” added Lincoln, “for we trust God will work 
with you against to-morrow. There is no remedy; you 
must needs appear again to-morrow, at eight of the clock, 
in St. orate s Church.”’ “4 

And so ‘ about one of the clock at afternoon’ that day's 
discussion ended, and Latimer, consigned to his old prison, 
was left to prepare himself by meditation and prayer for the 


final appearance which, he knew, should decide his fate. — 


\ 


The Final Appearance 535 


Next morning the Commissioners repaired at the ap- 
pointed hour to St. Mary’s Church, and seated themselves 
in state on their ‘ high throne, well trimmed with cloth of 
tissue and silk.’ It was the session-day, October 1, and 
many of the gentlemen of the county were present, and 
the whole of Oxford, town and gown, were assembled in 
eager crowds to behold the conclusion of the great trial. 
Ridley was first called in, and was after some debate con- 
demned, and consigned to the mayor for execution. Then 
Latimer was sent for, ‘ but in the mean season,’ says Foxe, 
‘the carpet or cloth, which lay upon the table whereat 
Master Ridley stood, was removed, because (as men 
reported) Master Latimer had never the degree of a 
doctor, as Master Ridley had’; a wretched piece of 
academical vindictiveness, which seems to have been quite 
uncalled for, as Latimer had been recognised as doctor in 
scores of public official documents.*' Placing his old felt 
hat under his elbows, the old Reformer, when he entered, 
complained of the carelessness which had left him, an 
fold man, with a very evil back,’ exposed so long to the 
somewhat rude pressing of the eager multitude. The 
Bishop of Lincoln promised that better order should be 
taken at his departure ; and then once more entreated him 
to revoke his errors and to return to the Catholic Church. 

Latimer interrupted him, ‘ Your lordship doth often 
repeat the Catholic Church, as though I should deny the 
same. No, my lord, I confess there is a Catholic Church, 
to the determination of which I will stand; but not the 
Church which you call catholic, which sooner might be 
termed diabolic. And whereas you join together the 
Romish and Catholic Church, stay there, I pray you. 
For it is one thing to say Romish Church, and another 
thing to say Catholic Church.’ 


* There is, as already mentioned, no record in Cambridge of 
Latimer’s receiving the degree, yet he would not have been styled 
Doctor in official documents without warrant. 


536 Latimer the Martyr 


The Articles which Latimer had answered the previous 
day were then once more read over one by one, that 
might have one final opportunity of escape afforded h 


wine ‘after that corporal being’ [manner] ‘ which 
Church of Rome prescribeth’; and that ‘there nei 
needeth nor can there be any other propitiatory sacrifice 
than that one oblation and sacrifice for the sins of the 
whole world which Christ has offered.’ 


of the English Church :— 

‘ Forasmuch as the said Hugh Latimer did affirm, main- 
tain, and stubbornly defend certain opinions, assertions, 
and heresies, contrary to the Word of God and the received 
faith of the Church, as in denying the true and natural 
body of Christ, and His natural blood to be in the sacra-- 


to be no member of the Church, excommunicated him 
with the great excommunication, and committed him to 
the secular powers to receive due punishment.’ 

The sentence read, the bishops broke up the court anc 
dismissed the audience. Latimer in vain reminded them 
of their promise the day before that he should be per- 


Latimer Condemned Bay 


mitted to explain his reasons for rejecting the Pope’s” 
authority ; they refused to grant him a hearing. He then 
asked if he might not be allowed to appeal from the 
judgment pronounced against him. ‘To whom would you 
appeal ?’ asked his judge. ‘To the next general council,’ 
quoth Latimer, ‘ which shall be truly called in God’s name.’ 
Lincoln turned aside with a smile ; he had no objection, 
he said, to such an assembly, but it would be a long time 
before it would be convoked. Latimer was then consigned 
to the mayor to be kept till October 16, the day appointed 
for his martyrdom. 

So concluded the last public act of Latimer’s long 
career ; like the great Apostle to whom he was so often 
compared, he had ‘fought a good fight,’ he had ‘ finished’ 
his ‘course,’ he had ‘kept the faith,’ he was ‘ ready to be 
offered.’ An interval of a fortnight was still to elapse 
before the actual execution of the terrible sentence ; and 
of that calm and holy time of preparation even tradition 
has preserved no record. It is enough that the eye of an 
admiring biographer can, in the dim distance, perceive a 
venerable head now bent in anxious study over the New 
Testament, now ‘suddenly lifted up to heaven, after his 
manner’; and a reverend figure kneeling in earnest 
supplication for strength to abide the fiery trial that was 
at hand. One wretched interruption, it is to be feared, 
would somewhat mar the peace of this blessed season of 
preparation. He had been sentenced to be degraded 
from all his ecclesiastical orders; and the traditional 
mummery° with which his degradation was effected, 
would probably be performed on the evening before his 
martyrdom, as in the case of his fellow-sufferer, Ridley. 

On Wednesday, October 16, all Oxford was gathered 
round the place of execution, ‘in the ditch over against 
Balliol College.’ The Government was apprehensive ot 
some violent attempt to prevent the martyrdom, and 
precautions had been taken to repel violence by force. 


538 Latimer the Martyr 


When all was ready, the two bishops were led forth from — 
their respective places of confinement in the houses of the 
mayor and the bailiff. It is needless to endeavour to 
disentangle the tale of Latimer’s martyrdom from that of 
his companion, with which it is inseparably interwoven. 
Latimer and Ridley were united in their lives, for years 
they had been joined in active labour, and associated in — 
imprisonment and misfortune, and we shall not, therefore, 
divide the story of their deaths. Equally needless would — 
it be to attempt to translate into the language of modern 
descriptive pathos, the plain unvarnished tale of the old — 
martyrologist. Foxe doubtless heard the sad scene 
described by Latimer’s servant, or some other eye-witness, — 
and his words bring us more really into the position of 
spectators than any effort of modern constructive i imagina- 
tion could do. y 

‘Master Ridley had a fair black gown furred, and faced 
with foins, such as he was wont to wear being iste andl 
a tippet of velvet, furred likewise, about his neck ; a velvet — 
night-cap upon hie head, and a corner cap upon the same, — 
going in a pair of slippers to the stake, between the a 4 
and an alderman. ; 

‘ After him came Master Latimer, in a poor Bristol triesall ‘ 
frock, all worn, with his buttoned cap, and a kerchief on 
his head, all ready to the fire, a new long shroud hanging ~ 
over his hase down to the feet ; which at first sight stirred 
men’s hearts to rue upon them, beholding, on the one side, — 
the honour they sometime had, and on the other, the 
calamity whereunto they were fallen. 4 

‘Master Ridley as he passed towards Bocardo, looked — 
up where Master Cranmer did lie’ [pity he did not form — 
one of the victims of the day, his career had then closed 
without a stain], ‘hoping belike to have seen him at the © 
glass window, and to have spoken unto him. But then 
Master Cranmer was busy with friar Soto* and his fellows, — 


® Confessor to Charles V. ; afterwards taken to England by Philip. ee 


To the Stake 539 


disputing together, so that he could not see him, through 
that occasion. Then Master Ridley looking back, espied 
Master Latimer coming after’ [from the bailiff’s house], 
‘unto whom he said, “Oh, be ye there?” “ Yea,” said 
Master Latimer, “ have after, as fast as I can follow”; so 
he, following a pretty way off, at length they came both 
to the stake, the one after the other, where first Dr. Ridley 
entering the place, marvellous earnestly holding up both 
his hands, looked towards heaven. Then, shortly after, 
espying Master Latimer, with a wondrous cheerful look he 
ran to him, embraced and kissed him ; and, as they that 
stood near reported, comforted him, saying : “ Be of good 
heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the 
flame or else strengthen us to abide it.” With that went 
he to the stake, kneeled down by it, kissed it, and effectu- 
ally prayed ; and behind him Master Latimer kneeled, as 
earnestly calling upon God as he. After they arose, the 
one talked with the other a little while, till they which 
were appointed to see the execution, removed themselves 
out of the sun. What they said I can learn of no man.’ 

Then followed a sermon, preached by the wretched 
pervert Smith, of whom we have heard before, on St. 
Paul’s words, ‘Though I give my body to be burnt, and 
have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.’ The charac- 
ter of the harangue, which was fortunately only a quarter 
of an hour long, may be left to the reader’s imagination. 
The two martyrs asked permission to say a few words to 
the people, but they were informed that they could only be 
allowed to speak if they recanted their errors. ‘ Well 
then,’ said Ridley, ‘I commit our cause to Almighty God, 
which shall indifferently judge all’ To which Latimer 
added his favourite remark, ‘There is nothing hid, but it 
shall be revealed.’ 

‘Incontinently they were commanded to make them 
ready, which they with all meekness obeyed. Master 
Ridley took his gown, and his tippet, and gave it to his 


540 Latimer the Marytr 


imprisonment, although he might not be suffered to 
come to him, lay there at his own charges to provide 


megs, vases of ginger, his dial, and such other things as he 
had about him, gave he to gentlemen standing by. Some 
plucked the points off his hose. Happy was he that might 
get any rag of him, 7 

‘Master Latimer gave nothing, but very quietly suffered 
his keeper to pull off his hose, and his other array, which 
to look unto was very simple ; and being stripped into his 
shroud, he seemed as comely a person to them that were 
there present, as one should lightly see ; and whereas in 
his clothes he appeared a withered and crooked silly’ [i.e., 
infirm] ‘old man, he now stood bolt upright, as comely a 
father as one might lightly behold. 

‘Then Master Ridley, standing as yet in his truss, said to” 
his brother, “It were best for me to go in my truss still.” 
“No,” quoth his brother, ‘it will put you to more pain; 
and the truss will doa poor man good.” Whereunto Master 
Ridley said, ‘‘ Be it in the name of God,” and so unlaced 
himself. Then, being in his shirt, he stood upon the stone, 
and held up his hand and said, “‘ Oh, heavenly Father, I 
give unto Thee most hearty thanks, for that Thou has 
called me to be a professor of Thee, even unto death. 
beseech Thee, Lord God, take mercy upon this reales of 
England, and deliver the same from all her enemies.” 

‘Then the smith took a chain of iron, and brought the 
same about both Dr. Ridley’s and Master Latimer’s 
middle, and as he was knocking in a staple, Dr. Ridley 
took the chain in his hand, and shaked the same, for 
it did gird in his belly, and looking aside to the smith, said, 
“Good fellow, knock it in hard, for the flesh will have his 


Lighting the Candle 541 


course.” Then his brother did bring him gunpowder 
in a bag, and would have tied the same about his neck. 
Master Ridley asked what it was. ‘ Gunpowder,” his 
brother said. ‘ Then,” said he, “I will take it to be sent 
of God, therefore I will receive it as sent of Him. And 
have you any,” said he, “for my brother?” meaning 
Master Latimer. “Yea, sir, that I have,” quoth his 
brother. ‘Then give it unto him,” said he, ‘“ betime, 
lest ye come too late.” So his brother went and carried 
of the same gunpowder unto Master Latimer. 

‘Then they brought a fagot, kindled with fire, and laid 
the same down at Dr. Ridley’s feet. To whom Master 
Latimer spake in this manner: “ Be of good comfort, 
Master Ridley, and play the man. WE SHALL THIS DAY 
LIGHT SUCH A CANDLE, BY GOD’S GRACE, IN ENGLAND, AS 
I TRUST SHALL NEVER BE PuT OuT.” And so the fire 
being given unto them, when Dr. Ridley saw the fire 
flaming up towards him, he cried with a wonderful loud 
voice, ‘In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum. 
Domine, recipe spiritum meum ;” and after, repeated this 
latter part often in English, “ Lord, Lord, receive my 
spirit” : Master Latimer crying as vehemently on the 
other side, ““O Father of heaven, receive my soul!” 
who received the flame as it were embracing of it. 
After that he had stroked his face with his hands, and 
as it were bathed them a little in the fire, he soon died 
(as it appeared), with very little pain or none. 

‘And thus much concerning this old and blessed servant 
of God, Master Latimer, for whose laborious travails, fruit- 
ful life, and constant death, the whole realm hath cause to 
give great thanks to Almighty God.’ 

Ridley lingered for some time in excruciating pain, the 
fire being choked and burning fiercely beneath, while it 
could not reach any of the vital parts. At last the flame 
rose and exploded the gunpowder, and his lifeless body fell 
over the chain at Latimer’s feet. 


542 Latimer the Martyr 


The bystanders remarked that while Latimer’s charred 
remains lay among the embers, a great quantity of blood 
issued from his heart ; and his friends saw in this a strange 
fulfilment of his prayer that God, who had called him to be 
a preacher of the Word, would strengthen him to shed his 
heart’s blood in its defeoee. 

Altogether the scene is one whose horrors a modern 
reader cannot fully conceive, and one reads with a feeling 
of amazement the following ‘ Bill of charges for burning | 
Ridley and Latimer,’ made out in cold blood, as if it were - 
a commonplace business transaction. 


‘For three loads of wood fagots to burn Ridley 
and Latimer .. a 


Lol 


SS 5 2 
Item, one load of furze fagots Been et 3 
For the carriage of these four loads az 
IEE HO sa POSE ces) iene Ses ase) eushuisnel ii aeaeenenn 
Item, two chains .. 3 
Item, two staples... ° 
Item, four labourers ... 2 


CORP OO 


So that it appears to have cost the Government of Mary 
one pound five shillings and twopence to burn the two 
martyrs ; such was the money value of the transaction, 
but the real price paid was the overthrow of the Romish 
relizion in England. 

The candle lit that day has never been put out. The 
honest life known and admired of all England, closing 
appropriately in a constant death, proved too much for 
the policy of Gardiner and the power of Spain. The 
nation was awakened to the greatness of the crisis : the 
doctrines which Latimer had taught and for which he 
had died were more sincerely cherished ; the blood of the 
martyrs again became the seed of the Church ; and the — 
Reformation, which seemed on the point of being ruined — 
by the violence of its enemies, and the careless lives of 
many who professed to be its friends, was again firmly — 


Latimer’s Character 543 


established by the fearless deaths of Ridley and Latimer, 
and the other brave martyrs whom their example animated 
to steadfastness. 

Five months later, Cranmer, after many exhibitions of 
weakness, stood on the same spot where his dear friends 
and fellow-prisoners had glorified God in the fire, and 
knelt in prayer to God, and, doubtless, felt his courage 
revived by the recollection of their firm faith. 

For many years strangers at Oxford were shown, in 
front of Balliol College, a stone, said to be the very stone 
‘on which the martyrs stood when they were burnt ; and 
the memory of their constancy was cherished as the noblest 
tradition of the place. Now a graceful monument com- 
memorates the faithfulness unto death of the three ‘Oxford 
Martyrs,’ and proclaims that three centuries have not 
weakened the love of the English nation for the good and 
brave men who died for the religious liberty of their 
country. Long may their names be held in reverence 
by the Church, and by the people of England! Long 
may the religious teachers of the nation admire and 
imitate the faith, the honesty, the learning, the gentle- 
ness, the large-hearted charity of the three illustrious 
martyrs, to whom, under God, we are chiefly indebted 
for the countless blessings of a purified religion—the 
true source of our national greatness ! 

Little need be added by way of illustrating the character 
of Latimer. His was one of those simple natures which 
no one can fail to read, and about which there is, conse- 
quently, a universal agreement among all historians. 
Plain, honest, out-spoken, warm-hearted, possessing a 
generous hand, a practical mind, a shrewd humour, an 
unaffected piety, he was the very type of man that the 
English nation has always best understood and most 
highly appreciated. This simplicity constituted the 
strength of his character; he was a straightforward, 
upright man, who meant what he said, and practised 


544 Latimer the Martyr 


what he taught; one who never sunk the man in the © 
mere theological polemic, in whose eyes sin was always — 
worse than error, and a pure life of more importance than — 


a mere orthodox creed. This love of practical religion it 
was Latimer’s mission to infuse into the English Reforma- 
tion. So far asthat movement was a return to the primitive 
teaching of Holy Scripture and the earliest times, he must 
be considered as occupying a subordinate place in it ; but 
so far as it was an attempt to revive that true model of holy 
living, of which Christ is the great example, Latimer was 
its ablest and most conspicuous leader. 

Of his personal character his biographer may, without 
exaggeration, speak in the highest terms. Froude has 
even asserted that Latimer was ‘the one man in England 
whose conduct was, perhaps, absolutely straightforward, 
upright, and untainted with alloy of baser matter.’ The 
praise may seem extravagant; still it is certain, that 
though Latimer lived in troublous times, when men’s 
passions were fiercely excited, and the tongue of slander 
spared neither age, nor rank nor profession, yet his 
character has come down to us almost without a stain. 
No serious imputation has ever been advanced against his 
personal integrity ; it has never been insinuated that he 


tart eS 


was a mere political tool; it has never been asserted — 


that his conduct was actuated by other than honest 
motives. The few petty charges occasionally alleged 
against him may be accepted as implying a tacit admission 
that no graver faults could be discovered in his character, 
and are in themselves so triflingas to be beneath criticism. 
No one, for example, can be expected seriously to 
refute the accusation of a contemporary enemy who 
declared that ‘he was ill-favoured, and had teeth like a 
horse’; and the disparaging remarks of some modern 
critics, who represent him as coarse and vulgar, have no 
greater foundation in truth. 

Of all the English Reformers, Latimer is the only one 


The Memory of the Just 545 


whose works still retain any measure of popularity. They 
have been frequently reprinted, and, in spite of the 
manifold disadvantages of antiquity and strange phraseo- 
logy, they have always found readers, not among the small 
body of theological antiquarians merely, but among the 
general class of intelligent Englishmen. His fame is still 
on the increase ; and the more his works are read the 
more the story of his life is known, the more the history of 
the period is studied, so much the higher, it may confi- 
dently be predicted, will Latimer stand in the estimation of 
his countrymen. ‘The memory of the just,’ says the wise 
man, ‘is blessed ;’ it is the richest inheritance which one 
generation can transmit to another—the glory and strength 
ofa nation. England can boast of many illustrious names, 
patriots, scholars, warriors, whose achievements have 
increased her fame and wealth, or have promoted her 
political and intellectual progress, and she owes them a 
debt of gratitude for the benefits they have conferred upon 
her ; but a far deeper gratitude, surely, is due to the 
teachers, whose unwearied labours overthrew the system of 
spiritual corruption that had so long held the nation in the 
bondage of ignorance and superstition, to the pious men 
whose perseverance secured for their countrymen a free 
Bible and a pure worship, to the martyrs who perished at 
the stake in noble testimony that the truth of God is 
dearer than life. Among that illustrious band of English 
preachers and martyrs, a very high, if not the highest 
place, may be claimed for Latimer ; and not till England 
has lost her veneration for simple, honest piety, and 
ceases to be a Bible-loving nation, will she cease to love 
and reverence the good old bishop whom Ridley so 
justly recognised as the ‘true apostle of the English 
nation.’ 


‘How fast the Marian death-list is unrolled ! 
See Latimer and Ridley, in the might 
Of Faith, stand coupled for a common flight! 


35 


546 Latimer the Martyr — 


One, like those prophets whom God sent of old, 
Transfigured, from this kindling hath foretold 
A torch of inextinguishable light ; 
The other gains a confidence as bold; 
And thus they foil their enemy’s despite. 
The penal instruments, the shows of crime, 
Are glorified while this once-mitred pair 
Of saintly friends, the murtherous chain partake, 
Corded, and burning at the social stake: 
Earth never witnessed object more sublime 
In constancy, in fellowship more fair !’—WoRDSWORTH. 


INDEX 


ABEL, death of, 364 
Act for the Advancement of True 
Religion, the, 373 
Act of Supremacy, the, 193 
Acton, Master, 281, 315 
Alane, Alexander, at Convocation, 
236 
Alexander, the Logic of, 28 
Anabaptists, 196, 234, 313, 340, 
419, 443, 445 
Anne of Cleves, marriage of, 358 
displeases Henry, 359 
divorce of, 362 
Arthur, Prince of Wales, marriage 
and death of, 20 
Articles of Religion, 240, 253 
Six (the Bloody Statute), 203, 
343, 369, 376 
ten, drawn up by Henry, 241, 
253 
forty-two, 464 
Askew, Anne, trial and death of, 
382, 387, 388 


BAGARD, DR., 251 
Bainham hears Crome preach, 121 
his trial and martyrdom, 154 
Latimer visits him, 156. 
Barker, Mr. Anthony, 273, 332 
Barnes, Robert, lectures at Cam- 
bridge, 54 
preaches at Cambridge, 58 
attacks Wolsey, 58 
arrested, 60 


Barnes, Robert (continued) : 
his trial and recantation, 61, 
62 
with Latimer at Hartlebury, 
280, 286 
accuses Lambert, 280 
attacks Gardiner, 360 
martyrdom of, 364 
Barton, Elizabeth, story of, 177, 
185 
Bayfield, Richard, put to death, 
132 
Baynton accompanies Latimer to 
Hiley, 135 
advises caution, 139 
Becon, his recollections of Lati- 
metr’s sermons, 70 
his interview with Latimer, 
368 
his summary of the Refor- 
mation under Henry, 394 
Bedyll, Prior Richard, 325 
Bell, the, Latimer’s story of, 271 
Bell, John, 354 
Bernher, Augustine, Latimer’s 
servant, on Latimer’s birth, 
quoted, 400, 469, 470, 486, 510, 
vagueness of, 367, 487 
Bible, the, authorised by Henry, 
265 
Bibliander, letter of, 335 
Bilney, Thomas, story of his con- 
version, 35 
his interview with Latimer, 45 


547 


548 


Bilney, Thomas (continued) : 
before Wolsey, 64 
sets out on a preaching ex- 
pedition, 79 
he recants, 80 
returns to Cambridge, 80 
accused of heresy, 120 
resolution of, 128 
arrest of, 129 
martyrdom of, 130 
his character, 131 
Bishops’ Book, the, 261 
Blackheath, battle at, 11, 19 
Blood of Hailes imposture, the, 316 
Bloody Statute, the, see Six 
Articles, the 
Bocardo, the prison at Oxford, 512 
prisoners’ fare in, 517 
Bocher, Joanna, 443 
Bockyng, Edward, 178 
Boleyn, Anne, her marriage, 160 
coronation of, 161 
aids in making Latimer a 
bishop, 201 
her execution, 224 
character of, 225 
Bonner, Bishop of Hereford, 296 
translated to London, 370 
enforces the Six Articles, 370 
sent to the Fleet, 404 
deprived, 446 
Book of Common Prayer, the 
first, issued in 1549, 423 
risings against, 445 
revision of, 463 
sanctioned by Parliament, 474 
Books burned, prohibited, 63, 528 
Bradford, Dr., 251 
Bradford, John, impressed by 
Latimer’s sermon, 416 
saves Bonner’s chaplain, 482 
imprisoned in the Tower 
with Latimer and Ridley, 


496 


Index 


Bristol, disturbances occasione 
by Latimer’s and Wishart 
preaching, 162, 166, 252, 350 

Brown, George, 176 

Brown, Richard, letter of, 162 

Bryan, Roo, oration of, 27 

Bucer, letters of, to Cranmer, 309, 
357 

Buckenham opposes Latimer, 86 © 

Bullinger, works of, presented to 
Latimer, 296 

Butler, John, letter of, 359 

Butts, the King’s physician, com. 
mends Latimer to Henry, 96 

brings Latimer a reward, 97 — 

entertains Latimer, 104 

intercedes for Latimer, 149 

consulted about Latimer’s 
accident, 367 

witnesses the ill-treatment of 
Cranmer, 379 


CAMBRIDGE University in Lati- 
mer’s time, 22 
spread of Lutheran opinions 
in, 28, 43 
learning of, 28 
its decision about Henry's 
divorce, 95 
Campeggio, appointed legate, 92 
an absentee, 113 : 
position of, 191 
Captain Cobbler, 248 
Card, the, sermons on, 81 
Cardinal College, 52 
Careless, John, the warning of, 
485 
Catherine of Arragon, her mar- 
riage to Prince Arthur, 20 
visits Cambridge, 28 
married to Henry, 40 
her divorce first mooted, 90 
divorce pronounced, 161 
death of, 217 


Index 


Celibacy of the clergy, 337 
Ceremonies ordered to be ob- 
served, 330 
Champneys, John, 419 
Charles V., 40, 42 
Christ’s Cards, 82 
Christ’s College, Cambridge, 22 
Christmas Dice, 86 
Clare Hall, Cambridge, 22, 447 
Clarke at Oxford, 77 
Clement VII., Pope, applied to 
for a divorce, 91 
vacillation of, 91 
Bulls of, 160 
gives final sentence, 186 
death of, 192 
Clepton, William, 273, 303 
Clergy, the, submission of, to 
Henry, 118, 184 
dissatisfaction of, 187 
state of, 270 
Confession of Faith, the Re- 
formed, 243 
Constantine, George, narrative of, 
356 
Cooke, Lady, 339 
Communion, Order of the, in 
English, to be used, 43 
Convocation, the fall of, 158, 184 
debates on the Sacraments, 
234 
Cromwell presides over, 235 
the second Reformed, 372 
Cox, his sermon before Convo- 
cation, 372 
Cranmer, Thomas, advises the 
King to consult the Universities, 
93 
appointed a royal chaplain, 


94 
made archbishop, 159 
pronounces sentence of di- 
vorce, 161 
visits Bristol, 167 


549 


Cranmer, Thomas (continued) : 
his advice to Latimer, 179 
his letter to Latimer, 180 
pronounces Anne Boleyn’s 

marriage void, 225 
entreats Cromwell in favour 
of the English Bible, 265 
his joy at Henry’s approval 

of it, 265 
treats with German Re- 
formers, 285 
his resolute opposition to the 
Six Articles, 344 
he informs Henry of Cathe- 
rine Howard’s misconduct, 
371 
is accused of countenancing 
heresy, 375, 378 
present at Henry’s death-bed, 
391 
letter of, to John a Lasco, 420 
projects a general league of 
Protestants, 420 
rejects transubstantiation, 422 
compiles the Forty-two Arti- 
cles, 464 
is sent to the Tower, 487 
removed to Oxford, 497 
martyrdom of, 543 
Crome, Dr., advocates the King’s 
cause, 95 
is accused by Stokesley, 120 
recants, 120 
preaches in Lent, 1545, 383 
recants again, 383 
Cromwell, Thomas, 
Latimer a living, 113 
his policy for asserting the 
Royal Supremacy, 117 
at the trial of the Nun of Kent, 
178 
aims of, 187 
appoints visitors to menas- 
teries, 218 


promises 


55° 


Cromwell, Thomas (continued) : 
presides in Convocation, 235 
issues injunctions to the 

clergy, 247 
assists in getting the Bible 
authorised in English, 265 
issues a second series of in- 
junctions, 307 
deceives Latimer, 348 
attainder and execution of, 
362 


Darcy, LORD, 255 

Dderfel Gadern, 296 

Denny, Sir Anthony, present at 
the King’s death-bed, 391 

Divorce of Henry and Catherine, 
89, 90, 116, 158 

“Doctrine of a Christian Man,” 
the, 374 

Dorset, Thomas, his gossip about 
Latimer, 221, 223 


EDWARD VI., joy at his birth, 274 
accession of, 396 
Latimer preaches before, 414 
illness of, 474 
the succession to, 475 
death of, 475 
Elizabeth, birth of, 161 
and the Lord Admiral, 431 
Ely, Bishop of (West), grants 
Bilney a licence to preach, 54 
hears Latimer preach, 55 
inhibits Latimer, 57 
Erasmus, visits Cambridge, 27, 30 
learning of, 30 
in the “ Praise of Folly,” 31 
he attacks the monks, 31 
edits the Greek Testament, 34 


FARMAN, DR., warning of, 60 
Featherstone, death of, 364 


Index 


Fisher, Bishop of Rochester 
preaches at Barnes’s recanta 
tion, 63 

implicated with the Nun o 
Kent, 178 ; 
declines to take the Oath of 
Succession, 189 
execution of, 195 

Forest, John, trial and execution 
of, 292 

Fox, letter of, on disturbances at 
Cambridge, 88 

Bishop of Hereford, 207 

his speech in Convocation — 
239 

death of, 296 

Foxe, John, his account of Lati 

mer’s birth, 14 
on Latimer’s precocity, 18 
on Latimer’s appearance 
before Wolsey, 65 
on Bilney's martyrdom, 167 
his accuracy vindicated, 164n — 
on Latimer’s New Year's gift 
to Henry, 213 ; 
on Latimer's resignation, 348 _ 
on the accident to Latimer, — 
366 
ordained by Ridley, 455 
his account of Latimer’s — 
prison life, 487 
on the first trial, 498 
on the second trial, 535 
on the martyrdom, 537 
Francis I., 40, 42, 144 
Fuller quoted, 224, 234, 372, 418 


GARDINER, on marriage with — 
deceased brother’s wife, 95 
promotes the divorce, 95 
intimates Henry's wish to 
Convocation, 152 
moves against Latimer, 163 
returns to England, 310 


Index 


Gardiner (continued) : 

his character, 310 

urges the trial of Lambert, 
316 

attacked by Barnes, 360 

opposes the English Bible, 372 

renews the persecution, 375 

his nephew executed, 378 

attacks the Queen, 382, 389 

examines Latimer at the 
Council, 384 

at the trial of Anne Askew, 
387 

struck out of the list of Henry’s 
executors, 389 

sent to the Fleet, 404 

deprived and imprisoned, 463 

released and made Lord 


Chancellor, 482 
examines Latimer, 487 
compiles articles against 
Latimer, 498 


Garret, death of, 364 

George van Paris, 463 

German Reformers, negotiations 
with, 284, 309, 329, 331, 421 

*Germany ’ at Cambridge, 59 

Ghinucci, position of, 191 

Gilpin, Bernhard, 442 

Glover, John, of Baxterley, 468 

Gossips, 281 

Grafton prints the English Bible, 
264 

Great Malvern, Abbey of, 220 

Greene, Latimer’s letter to, 50 

Grey, Lady Jane, proclaimed, 478 

executed, 479 
Gybson, Thomas, 260 


HAYNES, Master, 281 
Henry VII., his negotiations with 
Spain, 20 
visits Cambridge, 26 
death of, 27 


551 


Henry VIII., his marriage with 
Catherine, 21, 40 

ascends the throne, 29 

his wars on the Continent, 4o 

his divorce discussed, 89, 158, 
183 

his character, 90 

he consults the Universities 
about his divorce, 94 

praises Latimer’s sermon, 99 

‘Defender of the Faith,’ 100 

proceeds against Wolsey, 100 

orders heretical books to be 
given up, IOI 

orders inquiry respecting 
religious books, 102 

his proclamation against 
heretical books, 103 

makes Latimer one of his 
chaplains, 113 

his spirit roused, 116 

the Royal Supremacy, 118, 
152,158, 3, 193 

recommends Latimer to sub- 
mit, 152n 

his prudent conduct, 159 

marries Anne Boleyn, 160 

his resolute policy, 183 

prohibits suspected books, 194 

firm policy of, 195 

his preference for Jane Sey- 
mour, 213 

marries Jane Seymour, 224 

compiles the Ten Articles, 
241, 253 

permits the circulation of the 
English Bible, 265 

his grief at the death of 
Queen Jane, 283 

treats with German Refor- 
mers, 285, 329, 331 

presides at Lambert's trial, 
319 

issues injunctions, 321 


552 


Henry VIII. (continued) : 

orders his subjects to observe 
the ceremonies, 330 

labours for religious unity, 
339 

the Six Articles, 343 

his proclamation allowing 
reading of English Scrip- 
tures, 344, 358 

displeased with Latimer, 354 


marriage with Anne of 
Cleves, 358 

his treatment of Anne of 
Cleves, 359 


divorced from her, 363 
marries Catherine Howard, 
369 
orders parishes to procure 
Bibles, 371 
his grief at Catherine 
Howard’s misconduct, 371 
passes the Act for the Ad- 
vancement of True Re- 
ligion, 372 
married to Catherine Parr, 
375 
favours Cranmer, 379 
policy of, 381 
his last speech in Parliament, 
385 
death and character of, 392 
Heretics’ Hill, 49, 81 
Hiley institutes Latimer, 113 
summonses Latimer before 
him, 134 
orders Latimer to appear 
before Stokesley, 126 
Hilsey, Prior of Black Friars, be- 
comes Latimer’s friend, 165 
made Bishop of Rochester, 
207 
exposes images, 288 
Holbeach, Henry, 216, 290 
Homilies, Book of, compiled, 401 


Index 


Honorarium, the, 417 
Hooper, John, praises North- 
umberland, 447 
preaches before Edward, 451 
made Bishop of Gloucester, 
456 
objects to vestments, 457 
martyrdom of, 523 
Howard, Catherine, marriage of, 
371 
execution of, 372 
Hubbardin attacks Latimer, 164, 
166, 169 


IMAGES, frauds by, 287 

Ingworth, Richard, Letter of, 306 

“Tnstitution of a Christian man,” 
the, 261 

Italian scholarship, 33 


JEROME, death of, 364 
Jesus Tree, Chelsea, 133 
Joan of Kent, trial and death of, 


443 
John-a-Bolton, bequest of, 50 


Kine’s Supremacy, the, 118, 158, 
183, 188, 195; 198 


LAMBERT, first trial of, 221 
second trial of, 318 
martyrdom of, 320 

Large, Sir, 273 ; 

Latimer, Hugh, birth and paren- 

tage of, II 
arms of, 12 @ 
birthplace of, 13 
date of his birth, 14 NS 
his relatives, 15 
taught to shoot the bow, 18 
goes to Cambridge, 21 
elected to a fellowship, 22 

graduates, 23 

ordination of, 24 


Index 


‘Latimer, Hugh (continued) : 


knows no Greek, 38 

anecdote of, 39 

his zeal against the Refor- 
mers, 40 

his oration against Melanch- 
thon, 45 

conversion of, 46 

his friendship with Bilney, 
49 

preaches before the Bishop 
of Ely, 55 

appears before Wolsey, 65 

Becon’s opinion of his preach- 
ing, 70 

his sermon on the card, 81 

sermons of, 85 

answers Buckenham, 87 

summoned before the Vice- 
Chancellor of Cambridge, 
89 

advocates the King’s cause, 


95 

invited to Windsor, 96 

his first sermon at court, 96 

recompense for, 99 

commissioned to examine 
heretical books, 102 

visits London, 104 

royal gift to, 104 

revisits Cambridge, 105 

his letter to Henry in favour 
of the free circulation of 
the Bible, 107-112 

made a royal chaplain, 113 

made Rector of West King- 
ton, 113 

accused by Stokesley, 120 

preaches at Marshfield, 121 

attacked by Sherwood, 122- 
125 

revisits London, 126 

preaches in St. Mary Ab- 
church, 126 


553 


Latimer, Hugh (continued) : 


his opinion of Bilney, 131 

his former opinions, 136 

on a Christian congregation, 
140 

indicted to appear before 
Stokesley, 142 

arrives in London, 142 

before Convocation, 145 

articles presented to, 145 

his opinions, 147 

before Henry, 152 

his recantation, 153 

his letter to Greenwood, 150 

appeals to Henry, 151 

his visit to Bainham in New- 
gate, 156 

preaches in Bristol, 162 

theology of, 168 

on the Ave Maria, 170 

on the saints, 171 

on purgatory, 173 

at London, 175 

at West Kington, 179 

preaches at court, Lent, 1534, 
180 

in Lambeth Gardens, Igo 

empowered to _ license 
preachers, I91 

made Bishop of Worcester, 
201 

consecration of, 205 

his observance of Christmas, 
212 

his New Year’s gift to Henry, 
212 

defends the abbeys, 220 

at the trial of Lambert, 221 

his sermon before Convoca- 
tion, 227 

on the Ten Articles, 244 

preaches in London during 
the Pilgrimage of Grace, 
250 


554 Index 


Latimer, Hugh (continued) : 

visits his diocese, 271 

issues injunctions to his 
clergy, 267, 272 

his story of the bell, 271 

preaches at the funeral of 
Lady Jane Seymour, 277 

his great influence, 279 

exposes images at St. Paul’s 
Cross, 286 

present at the trial and exe- 
cution of Forest, 292 

investigates the ‘Blood of 
Hailes,’ 316 

visits Oxford, 323 

finances of, 327 

resigns his bishopric, 348 

confined in the Bishop of 
Chichester’s palace, 354 

prohibited from preaching, 


366 
bruised by the falling of a 
tree, 366 


possible visit to London, 366 

visits Warwickshire, 368 

before the Council at Green- 
wich, 384 

sent to the Tower, 386 

set at liberty, 398 

‘a quondam,’ 399 

licensed to preach, 4o1 

his sermon of the Plough, 
406 

preaches before Edward in 
Lent, 1548, 414 

receives the honorarium, 417 

abandons transubstantiation, 
422 

offered his bishopric again, 


preaches before Edward in 
Lent, 1549, 426 
condemns the Lord Admiral, 


431 


Latimer, Hugh (continued) : 

his last sermon before Ed- 
ward, Lent, 1550, 450 

visits Lincolnshire, 460 

again retires to obscurity, 
467 

preaches at Baxterley, 469 

his Lincolnshire sermons, 470 

letter for his arrest issued, 
485 

brought before the Council, 
486 

sent to the Tower, 487 

his life in the Tower, 489 

his conference with Ridley, b 


490 
removed to Oxford, 497 
examined by commissioners, 
498 
articles against him, 500 
trial of, 529 
martyrdom of, 537 
cost of his execution, 542 
Latimer, letters of, to Dr. Greene, 
50 
Dr. Redman, 72 
Henry VIII., 107-112 
Sherwood, 123 
Baynton, I14, 131, 139, 140 
Archbishop Warham, 147 
Hubbardin, 169 
Powell, 170 
Archbishop Parker, 245 
Mrs. Wilkinson, 513 
a timid Reformer, 519 
a farewell Letter, 525 i 
to Cromwell, 200, 208, 210, — 
aii, 246, 249, 251, 256, 273, s 
276, 277, 281, 282, 291, 293, 
297, 300, 301, 303, 305, 311, 
312, 314, 315, 316, 323, 324, 
327, 332, 333, 336 
Latimer, William, 102 
Learning, revival of, 19, 32 


Index 


Linacre, death of, 33 
Lincoln, Bishop of, at the trial of 
the martyrs, 530 
Lincolnshire, revolt in, 248 
Lingard, inaccuracy of, 383n 
his opinion of Latimer’s 
preaching, 399 
censures Latimer, 435 
Litany, the English, to be used, 
401 
Liturgy, English, first use of, 376 
London, Dr., letter of, 53 
Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, 
arrests Wycliffites, 74 
Lucy, Mr., 303 
Luther, works of, their influence 
at Cambridge, 28 
spread of his influence in 
England, 37 
turns the Pope’s decrees, 42 


MARRIAGE with a _ deceased 
brother’s wife discussed at 
Cambridge, 95 

Mary, ascends the throne, 479 

character of, 481 
Mass, reformation of the, 405 
Melanchthon, letter of, 285 
remonstrates with Henry for 
his edict in favour of the 
ceremonies, 331 
he writes in censure of the 
Six Articles, 357 
invited to come to England, 


421 

Melton, 248 

Monmouth, Humphrey, 278 
Moore, William, presides at 


Latimer’s election to the bishop- 
ric, 208 
removed from his office, 214 
More, Sir Thomas, on Bilney’s 
trial, 68 
made Lord Chancellor, 101 


555 


More, Sir Thomas (continued) : 
persecution by, 128 
issues a writ for burning 
Bilney, 129 
cruelty of, 133n 
punishes Tewkesbury, 133 
orders Bainham to be racked, 
154 
resigns the Chancellorship, 
158 
implicated with the Nun of 
Kent, 178 
declines to take the Oath of 
Succession, 189 
in Lambeth Garden, 190 
execution of, 196 
character of, 197 
Morice, Ralph, 56 
Mortuaries, Io 


NEVELL, Mr., 256, 298, 301, 306 
New Learning, the, 19, 30 
Norfolk, Duke of, introduces the 
Six Articles, 342 
accuses Cromwell, 361 
tried and condemned, 390 
Northumberland, Duke of, fall of, 
446 
Nun of Kent, the story of, 177 
execution of, 185 


OaTH of the Succession, the, 189, 
194, 201 
Our Lady of Worcester, 299 
Oxford University, outbreak of 
reformed opinions in, 77 
violently opposed to Henry’s 
divorce, 94 
Latimer’s trial and martyr- 
dom at, 497, 529 


PAPAL Supremacy, the, 183, 186, 
188, 198 
restored, 484 


556 


Parker, Dr. Thomas, 119, 192 
Parliament, complaints of, Ior 
on Papal Supremacy, 184, 186 
on the Royal Succession, 186, 
189 
passes the Act of Supremacy, 
193 
on religious houses, 218 
work of, 223 
on religious unity, 339 
passes the Act for the Ad- 
vancement of True Re- 
ligion, 373 
on English Litany, 423 
on matriage, 425 
on the Reformed Ordinal, 


449 
on the Articles, 464 
sanctions the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, 474 
Parr, Catherine, said to have en- 
tertained Latimer, 367 
married to Henry, 375 
exposed to danger from 
Gardiner, 382 
married to Lord Seymour, 417 
death of, 431 
Perkin Warbeck, rebellion of, 186 
Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 249 
Plague, the, 27 
Pole, Cardinal, his book on the 
Unity of the Church, 226 
excommunicates Henry, 327 
reconciles England to Rome, 
483 
issues a commission to try 
Latimer, 529 
Powell, Dr., on pilgrimages, 165 
attacks Latimer at Bristol, 
169 
Latimer’s reply to him, 170 
death of, 364 
“ Praise of Folly,” the, 31 
Prayers in English, 376 


Index 


Proctor’s books, 25 
Pye, Mr., 302 


REDMAN, his letter to Latimer, 72 
Reformation, the, progress of, 72, 
161, 179, 283, 304, 308, 359, 378, 
397; 401, 424, 448, 476, 479 
character of, 524 
Reformers, flight of, 355 
Richmond, Countess of, visits 
Cambridge, 26 
Ridley, preaches against images, 
398 
his praise of Latimer, 448 


holds the first ordination ac- 
cording to the Reformed — 


Ordinal, 454 
opposes Hooper, 457 


preaches in favour of Lady — 


Jane Grey, 478 
sent to the Tower, 487 
his conference with Latimer, 


490 
removed to Oxford, 497 
his letters from Oxford, 512, 
515, 521, 522, 523, 524 
his condemnation, 535 
martyrdom of, 537 
Robin Hood’s day, 272 


Rogers, the first Marian Martyr, — 


522 
Rome, Sack of, 92 
Royal Succession, the, 186 
Oath of, 189 
Royal Supremacy, the, 118, 152, 
158, 183, 193 
Rood of Bexley, the, 287 
of Ramsby, 289 


SACRAMENTARIES, the, 313, 340 
Sampson, Dr. Thomas, 16 
letter of, on Latimer, 182 


committed to the Tower, 355, 


365 


q 


Index 


Scurfeld, John, 314 
Sermons on the Cards, 82 
of the Plough, 406 
Seymour, Lady Jane, marriage 
of, 224 
death and burial of, 277 
Seymour, Lord, helps Edward 
with money, 418 
_ arrested for treason, 432 
executed, 432 
Latimer’s remarks on his 
conduct, 432 
Shakespeare quoted, 379 
Shaxton, 201 
Sherwood attacks Latimer, 122 
Sibyl of Worcester, the, 299 
Six Articles, the, 203, 343, 344, 369 
limitations to, 376 
Somerset, made Protector, 396 
gains the Battle of Pinkie, 404 
his fall, 430 
his execution, 432 
Stafford, George, innovation of, 37 
Stanton, John, confession of, 199 
Statham, Mrs., Latimer’s nurse, 
278, 291, 365, 370 
Statute, the Bloody, see Six Articles 
Still-Yard men, the, 62 
Stokesley, Bishop of London, 
accuses Latimer, 120 
persecution by, 128 
cruelty of, 133n 
instigates Hiley 
Latimer, 134 
cites Latimer before him, 141 
interdicts preachers, 176 
inhibits Latimer, 176 
on the Word of God, 240 
Suffolk, Duchess of, her kindness 
to Latimer, 460 
loses her sons, 469 
her character, 469, 543 
her allusion to Latimer’s wife, 
472 


against 


557 


Suppression of religious houses, 
304, 343 

Surrey, arrest and execution of, 
390 

Sweating sickness, the, 466 


TAYLOR, Rowland, letter of, 518 
Tewkesbury, John, martyrdom of, 


133 
Throgmorton, Anthony, 281 
Thurcastone, 12, 13 
Tindale, William, at Cambridge 
36 
his New Testament first cir- 
culated, 76 
ordered tobe given up, Ior 
condemnation of his works, 
103 
his English Bible, 104 
on ale-house priests, 122 
martyred at Vilvorde, 195 
Tracy, Mr., lease of, 334 
Tracy, William, exhumation of, 
119 
Traherno, letter of, 422 
Transubstantiation, belief! in, 262 
Trentals, 269 
Tunstal, denounces the English 
Testament, 76 
translated to Durham, 104 
at Lambert's trial, 320 
examines Latimer, 384 
one of the Council during 
Edward’s minority, 396 
deprivation of, 463 


UNIVERSITY Grace Book, the, 
23 

Universities, the, on the divorce 
question, 94 


VISITATION of the kingdom, 402 
of the monasteries, 218 


553: Index 


Waruan, Archbishop, his declara- 
tion on the King’s Supremacy, 
118 

protests against the legislation 
of Parliament, 144 
death of, 159 

Wars of the Roses, the, 15, 17 

Warwick, death of, 20 

Warwick College, 300 

Wattwood, Mr., character of, 311, 
336 

West, see Ely, Bishop of 

West Kington Church, 115 

“Whip with six cords,” the, see 
Six Articles 

White Horse, the, 59 

Wickliffe, works of, their influence, 


74 
Wilkinson, Mrs., kindness of, 513 
Wingfield, Sir R, 50 
Wishart, George, at Bristol, 350 
Wolsey at Calais, 21 
visits Cambridge, 27 
scholarship of, 30 
his power and offices, 41 


Printed in Great Britain by 


UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON 


Wolsey (continued) : 
disappointed of becoming 
Pope, 41 
forbids the visitation of Cam-— 
bridge, 43 
his college at Oxford, 43 
pomp of, 63 
summons Latimer, 65 
licenses Latimer to preach, 67 
summons Bilney, 67 4 
upbraids him with perjury, — 
79 
appointed Legate, 92 
indictment of, 100 
his fall and death, 105 
character of, 106 
Worcester, condition of, 192 
in Latimer’s time, 204 
lands of the bishopric, 297n — 
sheriffs of, 302 a 
Wriothesley, Lord, 384, 388, 389, 
396 


YEOMANRY, the English, 16 
Yorkshire, rising in, 248 


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